until our city be afire
by inkjade
Summary: Being Gotham's savior was hard; being its scapegoat is harder still. And being subjected to one more second of Gordon's sympathy or Montoya's snark might just be the death of him.
1. Chapter 1

They come up onto the rooftop in a tight pack, full of sharp edges and nervous curiosity, snapping jokes and crowding one another like rambunctious puppies. Armed, rambunctious puppies.

It's an odd metaphor, to put it mildly, for the city's finest.

Montoya, first forward and managing (almost: behind her Gordon wears a faint irritated smile) to make that seem like a happy accident, scours the half-inch layer of snow as though convinced assassins are hiding under it. Her smirk could cut glass from twenty paces. Bullock looms out around her, scowling preemptively, wrapped in a trench coat that makes him look like a comic book mob boss. Stephens pats his sidearm and hangs back next to Gordon, wary as soon as he hits the open air.

Batman shifts against the feverish heat of the flue he's hidden beside (kevlar might stop bullets but apparently it does nothing for wind), and wishes that Jim Gordon wasn't so irritatingly _persistent_.

_Somebody else has to know, if something happens to me. I won't have all my people shooting you on sight_, the man had said last night, standing shivering on his porch in what looked absurdly like a barn coat. Then, a little lamely, _This city needs you_. Finally just _Please_, a word with too much ache in it for either of them, too much echo of the newly empty house beyond the Commissioner's hunched shoulders, and somehow that sound has brought him here, standing sore and tired in the shadows on the MCU roof and trying to ignore the fact that snowflakes are blowing under his cowl. That shouldn't be possible, but it's happening, and it itches. He wonders if Montoya is going to shoot him when he appears. She looks like she'd like to shoot something. The stitches in his side pull and burn under the armor.

Some nights being an airheaded billionaire with an endless supply of shiny toys and not a single halfassed damn to give about the world seems almost like a nice retirement.

_Ask Lucius about thermals_, he thinks (that conversation should be mortifying), and drops down a calculated fifteen feet from them, far enough from the open door that he isn't blocking it, close enough to the yawning edge of the building to be in the air in a few seconds. If it comes to that. Gordon was sure it wouldn't, and Gordon is rarely wrong about his people these days.

It's Bullock who draws. Stephens shoves himself in front of Gordon, a gesture that ties a warm knot of approval in Batman's chest- and Montoya, after jerking sideways like a startled cat, just watches him, head tilted, eyes wise and amused. The glass-cutting smirk does wilt a little bit.

"Mother_fuck_er!" Bullock snarls. His Glock looks too big to be regulation from this angle. "Murdering _fuck_! Son of a bitching _fuck_!"

The expletives get longer and, if possible, less creative while Gordon calmly talks him down. Montoya's smirk slowly widens into a grin and Stephens' shoulders drop as his eyebrows disappear into his hairline, and a minute later when Bullock lets his gun slide into Gordon's careful grip with a growled "Goddamn asshole mother_fuck_ing _fuck_," even Batman has to make a bit of an effort to keep the scowl steady.

"Now that we've cleared the air," Gordon says dryly, pocketing Bullock's gun in that ridiculous barn coat-thing.

Montoya and Stephens snort like kids whispering dirty jokes to each other in class. It's at least half nerves: Stephens' left hand is still hovering over his sidearm. Batman doesn't move. If the wind wasn't kicking his cape around that would be better, because Montoya's eyes are darting to that movement -but Gotham's getting a rare white Christmas, which after the terror of autumn is probably a little more important than convenient weather for brooding wanted vigilante ambiance. Things do look slightly less bleak under the blanket of snow.

"Shit fuck," Bullock concludes morosely.

"Well said, Harvey," Stephens says.

Montoya starts to snicker, high and helpless, one hand rising to cover her face. Batman has to scowl a little harder. It's been a month and more since he had the impulse to laugh at anything, and he can't quite remember what to do with it.

Bullock edges backward one unwilling step. Too much scowl, apparently.

It's not fooling Gordon, who sends him a look lit with wry humor and relief and gratitude, and suddenly it's clear: it was too heavy a secret, too much to ask. It's easy to forget this man can turn his honesty into a mask as effective as the cowl, but he's revisiting the fact now, seeing the burden behind it, only visible now that it's lifted. Somehow he never imagined that gentle poker face could be used on _him_. Which is stupidly arrogant, since Gordon faked his own death barely a month ago.

He thinks of the empty house behind Gordon's coat-bundled form, remembers a tow-headed boy with the same steady eyes, hero worship instead of seasoned, reasoning trust in them (which was actually heavier, in some indefinable way). He'd saddled that kid with the same lie, the same responsibility to prop it up and make it real, and he'd never counted the cost, too bent on meting out his own skewed justice for his own compounded failures.

He has to draw a breath against a rush of nausea. He looks at the detectives instead of at Gordon. They are all watching the Bat, waiting.

"He didn't kill Dent," Stephens says. It's not really a question.

"He didn't," Gordon agrees. "And he didn't threaten my family."

Bullock sighs heavily. Montoya has gotten serious. Her eyes travel over the cowl. "Who did?" she says.

Gordon doesn't have an easy answer for that. "The Joker," he says, after a frowning look at the snow cover, like there are simpler answers under there. "In a way. In all the ways that matter."

"In a _way,_ Boss? What's that supposed to mean?"

Gordon was probably hoping to avoid this but he tells it unflinchingly, listing Dent's madness-driven crimes in the dry, factual voice of trial testimony. There's an ache under these words too, buried a little deeper but as plain as _Please_ to someone who has heard his voice break against the brutal imperative of his children's lives. Batman hears kevlar creaking: he's balled his hands into fists. He lets them fall open. Stephens flicks a considering glance at him.

Gordon's not meeting anyone's eyes when he finishes. There's silence, as the snow starts to stick to their hair and the kevlar becomes ever more useless against the cold. The detectives think it over. Montoya rubs her arms.

"Somebody's going to shoot him, Boss," she says finally.

"Let me worry about that."

The rasp is a little raspier tonight. Alfred has taken to leaving cough drops in convenient places around the penthouse, which is probably sly British commentary on -something. He has yet to figure out what. He doesn't think Alfred has ever heard the Bat speak, but you can't put anything past the man.

Montoya makes a face. Batman is already regretting the fact that she no longer believes he's a murderer. He sees a long line of smartass comments he'll be obliged to ignore stretching ahead of them. "Sure. And if you get clipped? Or taken in? You want your file baked in coffee cake, or are you more of a brownie guy?"

"Montoya," Gordon says quietly.

"Boss, you know I'll do whatever you need me to, but this is too big, we got the whole force looking for him-"

"_You_ bake him something and we won't need to worry about keeping him alive anyway," Bullock rumbles.

-How did this get to be about them keeping _him_ alive? He glowers, feeling like he missed an important piece of this discussion. Then he sees Gordon's look, half-exasperated and half-guilty, and knows that's what it was always about, for at least one of them. He's just the last to pick up on it.

_Damn_ the man.

"The peanut gallery speaks," Montoya says, dry as vermouth. "S'cuse me if I don't take your opinion of my domestic skills too seriously, Bullock."

"Oh, _domestic skills_, is that what they call 'em these days..."

"Please. Your idea of a meal is Spaghetti-O's."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"Of course not, Bullock. My five year old nephew eats them every day. You get down with your bad toddler self."

"Enough," Gordon says, raising his voice a little, reining them in. "The Joker's gone, but somebody will try to take his place soon, and in the meantime the whole city thinks Batman's too busy running from us to keep an eye on things, and _we're_ too busy trying to catch him. We're already seeing a rise in petty theft. It's going to get worse. If anybody's got a better idea, speak up."

Nobody does. Batman's still trying to process the notion that Gordon wanted these three in on it not for his own sake but for the Bat's, like a vigilante in a costume needs… what? Moral support?

It's infuriating and entirely predictable, in hindsight, and it puts a weird warm twist of irritation right behind his sternum, which is distracting enough that he only notices Gordon has dismissed his people when they start to move toward the door. They look like they want him to say something else. He offers up a short nod, wondering if the confusion has made it to his face. Stephens would probably be worrying, Bullock scowling, and Montoya smirking either way.

They're good cops. They'll be a good resource. But it risks them; risks Gordon. Risks the city, and the lie they created for the city's sake. That feels like a betrayal. He folds his arms, pushing down the urge to rub some heat back into his biceps, and glowers a little harder.

That doesn't fool Gordon any more than the scowl. He doesn't know when that started to happen. Gordon's eyes are sad and too clear behind the glasses.

"Gerry suspected," Gordon says. "Harvey would have gotten there in time. Renee-" he breaks off, pushes his glasses up to rub his forehead tiredly. "I never know what's going on in that girl's head. Probably knew all along. She's too quick for her own good."

_Like Rachel._

It isn't a thought the Bat would have. It throws him off, pushes his ribs out in a too-deep breath that's close to a gasp. The stitches howl into his skin. Gordon's gaze narrows, reading that. The cowl feels too tight. "It's all right," Gordon says, a phrase which in his voice has an agonizing, almost perfect echo in his worst memories. For a split second, caught between panic and pain, he thinks, _He knows_.

Then Gordon makes a face, and rational thought reasserts itself: it's not a hint, it's just Jim Gordon, applying the same generous, protective impulse he once offered a shattered little boy to a stranger dressed up in a bat costume. "It will be all right," Gordon amends wearily.

He can't take any more of that gentle look, it's worse than the wind through the kevlar suit.

"I'll leave word when I have something on the Rugetti family operation," Bruce says in Batman's rasp, scrabbling mentally for Batman's cold logic, and turns on the roof's edge to catch the freezing wind in his cape.

#

It's a bad night to be a criminal in Gotham.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time he sees them he's in khaki instead of kevlar, and Montoya is wearing a dress.

He isn't sure which feels weirder, but he's used to khaki, so it's probably the dress. Montoya looks like an unusually comely chimpanzee trying to figure out a parachute: her hands steal to the skirt and pull every few minutes, and every time she brushes her own bare arms she gets this glassy, alarmed look. Bruce feels the grin he's pinned to his face for the duration of the charity ball become a little too genuine, and has to rein it in before the eyecandy draped over his arm -who wears her dress like a second skin she plans to shed later- notices.

"Detective," he says, tone just right: careless, overly suave, freighting an uncomfortable amount of appreciation for her breasts in their dark satin packaging. She's got _Oh Christ, another one_ on her face before she's even done turning around.

Bruce greets her with a spectacularly insensitive trigger-pull point. Both hands, no less. "Montoni, right? No, wait, Menota. Morona?"

"Montoya." She may actually be hurting herself swallowing all that sarcasm. He's going to have to remember the expression that goes with that later, when she's giving the Batman a hard time.

"_Right._ I was close, give me that much. I saw you at the press conference last month, didn't I? Tragic shame," he says with glib, frowning seriousness, and shakes his head. "I believed in Harvey Dent."

Dear god, he's such an asshole. He can't stand himself.

Clearly neither can Montoya, who flings a glance around the room as though hoping for armed, angry gunmen to rise up out of the champagne fountain and save her from this conversation. Behind her Bullock edges into view, which is two out of three, judging by his frown and the bulge of the Glock under his suit jacket. Maybe all three. Bullock looks painfully uncomfortable in formalwear.

Then again, Montoya's gun is in a thigh holster. There's something Batman's never had to worry about.

Bruce shakes Bullock's hand with a bewildered expression, forcing an introduction Montoya would rather not make. Eyecandy (Haylee? Hillary? Damn it.) smiles ornamentally and tightens her hold on Bruce's arm, conveying her wish to be having a different discussion with more important people.

"Here to contribute?" he asks, like he has no idea what a Gotham City detective's salary is, and wonders for a second if one of them will punch him. He kind of wishes someone would. The things that come out of Wayne's mouth are irritating at the best of times, and this is hardly the best of times- right now he's a little on edge because he didn't expect to see these two here, and therefore so fabulously stupid he feels like a hostage in a terrible sitcom. _Being Bruce Wayne. One and a Half Men and a Bat. Perfect Strangeness._

Montoya turns, scanning the room again and slumping with faint but perceptible relief when she sees Gordon making his way toward them. Now he knows why they're here, though he has to admit he never expected to see Gordon at one of these. But Loeb showed his face at charity events now and then, so perhaps it's actually part of the job.

Bruce digs a nail into his palm. Having his night-time ally staring him in the face, however different this face may be from the one Gordon sees on the MCU roof, plants a slow curl of anxiety in his guts.

"Mr. Wayne," Gordon says, shaking his hand without enthusiasm, and Bruce hears himself say, with grating bonhomie: "Commissioner, I was hoping I'd run into you tonight."

Gordon's too polite to look surprised. Montoya and Bullock definitely aren't. He himself probably isn't either, since he has _no fucking idea_ how to follow that up. Maybe he should find a drink now, and just keep pouring it into his mouth whenever he gets the urge to speak.

"Speeding tickets?" Montoya mutters, and ducks Gordon's quelling glare by snatching a cracker off the tray of a passing waiter. Bullock actually turns around to look at other people, like he can't stand another minute of this. His broad shoulders are bunched under the fabric of his coat. Bruce laughs.

"Now that you mention it, I do have fifty or sixty of those I should probably talk to someone about. No, I wanted to speak with you about the crime, er, lab. Yours?" He waves a hand in a vague circle that comes a hair too close to Montoya's cleavage, and waits in certain despair to hear whatever else it is he has to say. It's all right to let the Bat have free rein to speak, because the Bat isn't really one for small talk: usually he just barks something on the edge of insulting and disappears off a roof while people are still talking. But the playboy persona has the shrill charm of a drunk male escort and no filter, and if he doesn't shut himself up in time he invariably ends up in someone's bed, on someone's failing tolerance, or headlining someone's front page.

All of them are staring incredulously by the time he finishes the hand gesture. Even Eyecandy, though chances are it's not for the same reason.

"_You_ want to fund a crime lab, Bruce?" Eyecandy asks.

Okay, apparently they _are_ all on the same page. And he may have accidentally picked someone of more than the usual level of intelligence to decorate his arm tonight. He gives another nebulous wave, which has the effect of forcing Montoya back a step and putting a weary set of lines on Gordon's brow. Why the hell are they still here, listening?

"Lucius does. And hey, I've seen them on CSI: pretty amazing stuff." Jesus _Christ_, where did this trigger-point gesture he keeps aiming at people who have guns pointed at them daily come from? He didn't do this before he turned into an asshole by day/ vigilante by night, he's sure of it.

Maybe gunmen _will _pop out of the champagne fountain: anything, anything to stop him talking.

"Anyway," he says, as Montoya starts scanning the dance floor with bored eyes and Bullock huffs a sigh and stares at a point behind Bruce's left shoulder, "I'd raised some money for Dent's reelection campaign, you know, except there's nowhere for it to go now, and Lucius suggested making a donation to the, er, the MCU? Something about outdated equipment. And tax write-offs, which would make the board happy. I'm not sure exactly how it all works, but I think it ought to be you who decides how it's used."

Bullock perks up like a mastiff going on alert, attention returning to the point between Bruce's eyes instead of the one over his shoulder. _A talent for matching forensic evidence to fieldwork,_ some long-ago superior officer had commented in his file, which Batman hacked and read months ago.

Gordon's face becomes a little more animated, though he's still flicking glances across the room in search of an escape. Bruce stomps on another weird twist of warmth in his chest. _Really?_ he thinks wearily. _How are you hoping this will end, exactly?_

But Wayne is a goddamned chihuahua, all yappy, dumb tenacity and teeth. Bruce adds a third ridiculous hand wave to the playboy grin that's appeared on his face, because really, why stop now?

"I'm sure we'd be grateful for anything you want to contribute, Mr. Wayne," Gordon says, quiet and calm, his eyes sliding over the room beyond Bruce's head. And Bruce realizes, far too late, that they've all been looking away from him in the same direction for the last minute or so.

Bullock moves, morphing into a tank in a sports coat. His gun is in his hand. Bruce hears the music of champagne glasses shattering behind him, and he's turning too fast before he remembers: he's _Wayne_, the guy who vanishes during hold-ups, burns down buildings in drunken tantrums, and crashes his Lamborghini into police vans while running red lights. He's no use.

He's in the way, actually.

Gunfire pops, followed by screams, and Montoya's palm meets the back of his head with what might be a little more than necessary force, flattening him. Gordon has drawn, is moving away, shouting _Cover him_. Outrage boils in Bruce's veins. This is all wrong. He flips over onto his back as Eyecandy falls on top of him. He's having a hard time slowing his reactions: he wants to break somebody's skull, possibly Gordon's, because it's obvious now, in the harsh light of hindsight, why the GCPD are _really_ here.

The way Montoya caught his eye; the way Bullock was shadowing them. The way Gordon stood still for Wayne's stupid commentary when he's already famous for his ability to bow out of moments like that with inexorable grace. They came here on a _tip_. They'd been protecting _him_.

They are protecting him now, fanning out around him as Eyecandy huddles in his arms on the cold marble and the guests scatter. _Fuck_.

Bruce forces himself not to leap up. Wayne would never do something like that. He is trapped, watching the few allies Batman has left put themselves between his body and bullets. He rolls Eyecandy under the shield of his body and wonders, helpless and utterly _furious_, if the gunmen actually did come out of the champagne fountain.


	3. Chapter 3

"Ow," Bruce says, and pulls his arm back.

Alfred aims a look that's more or less the mental equivalent of a stun gun charge at him from under elegantly raised gray eyebrows, then returns to the task of wrapping a sprained wrist.

"Will you be needing general anesthesia, sir?" he says, so deadpan Montoya shoots them a startled look before she realizes it was sarcasm. That epiphany is the cause of a beautiful double-take, which Bruce watches from the corner of his eye. He fakes a grimace he hopes looks like whiny, billionaire pain.

When it comes to mockery, Montoya's got nothing on Alfred. She could learn a thing or two.

-God, she actually _could_. That's an idea so terrible he shies bodily away from it, and is forced to turn that into a flinch. Wayne is a real wimp tonight. Bruce isn't, though his wrist does ache after a frantic snatch at the foot of a gunman running past him to take down Bullock. But he's got work to do, as soon as he can convince the cops to leave. He's still hot with anger, almost shaking: at the gunmen; at Gordon and Montoya and Bullock; at himself.

Fortunately, Batman does his best work in exactly this state.

"I'll be fine," Bruce drawls, and flinches again for verisimilitude as Alfred finishes wrapping his wrist and tapes the bandage in place.

"Maybe you ought to get that checked, Mr. Wayne," Gordon says from his perch on the Italian couch, where he's watching with the unfocused, inward stare of a man in pain. He's sitting as straight as he can considering the bruise that must be spreading under the kevlar vest (that was hiding under the shirt and the jacket, and Bruce _really_ wasn't paying attention tonight. His worlds don't often collide like this). Bruce is very familiar with the feeling of flesh slowly absorbing the shock of an 1100 foot-per-second blow, except his armor is miles better than standard police soft vest. He thinks of offering some advil, but he already knows Gordon won't accept. "You did a brave thing, but please let the police handle it next time."

"Actually, Commissioner, I have to confess: I was trying to grab my drink."

Okay, that might have been a bit too much.

He manages an appropriately shamefaced expression, which either works that well or the Prince of Gotham really is that famous an idiot. Alfred shoots him another Butler On Stun glare from where he's bent over Bruce's arm. "I'm sure you all must be tired," Bruce says, dodging the accusation in that gaze: he's actually not sure how he earned it this time. Usually he's dripped at least a half pint of blood on the carpets before Alfred gives him _this _look.

"Someone put a hit out on you, Mr. Wayne," Gordon says, voice a little stronger now, probably from pure irritation. "We have to talk about how we're going to handle that first. Then we'll leave you to your evening."

"A _hit_?" Bruce hoots, disbelieving and embarrassingly owl-like. It's genuine surprise instead of one of Wayne's canned responses, and he sees the difference reflected in Gordon's gaze before he picks himself up, retrieving his wrapped wrist from Alfred, to cross to the big windows that look out over Gotham.

Tiny lights are waking up all over the city, drawing the buildings from twilight into true night. He feels a shiver of adrenaline roll up his spine. This view always calls up the noisy ghost of a long drop in his nerves, the tension of waiting for the snap of the cape or the catch of a descender to save him, wondering in the tiny part of him not bent wholeheartedly on the mission if this will be the time something fails, the time he rides the dark the whole way down.

He doesn't turn when Montoya stonily tells him to _step away from the window, sir, please,_ certain that what's in his eyes right now isn't Wayne at all.

"They're bulletproof," he says absently.

"The Joker had rocket launchers," Gordon points out, and Bruce, trying to _see_ his way into the city's uglier blocks and alleyways via a fierce glower through glass, is on the brink of explaining why that equipment would never work at this angle when Alfred clears his throat.

He is, in fact, an idiot deserving every tabloid-fueled iota of Wayne's airheaded reputation.

"Come on," he scoffs breezily, spinning on a heel, hands in pockets, bad boy smirk frozen in place. "All that for me? What good am I to anybody dead?"

Montoya's effort not to answer that honestly is no doubt a struggle of epic proportions, deserving of honorary poetry, a monument, or maybe a short documentary, but not a flicker of it shows on her face. He's going to have to like her if she keeps this up.

"That's what we need to find out," Gordon explains patiently. "We'll have a task force set up tomorrow morning, and we'll keep you apprised of anything you need to know, Mr. Wayne."

Hah. He knows exactly what _that_ means, and is glad Batman cracked their databases over a year ago.

"In the meantime," Gordon says, standing, wincing, one hand twitching toward his bruised side. Bruce tenses against the impulse to help him up. He has the sinking feeling that he's really not going to like the punchline of this joke. "We need to assign you a protective detail."

Oh _hell_ no.


	4. Chapter 4

A week later he's still trying to figure out how it happened.

More importantly how to make it stop, as Gordon's idea of a protective detail isn't uniforms but detectives, and so far they're proving sharp enough that he was actually trapped in the penthouse on one intensely frustrating occasion. Rugetti dock workers were receiving a shipment of ephedrine on Pier 12, and Batman couldn't get past two junior detectives on babysitting duty. Embarrassing.

He's had to rely heavily on Wayne since, which means the press is back in love with him and two local models have been catapulted to far larger careers than they were probably ready for as a result. Wayne drops a hustler's wink at Detective Something, who he's started thinking of (uncharitably) as Tweedle, and ushers Candi -surely not the name she was born with- through the penthouse living room and into the bedroom. Not his, but the one he uses for guests he wants to both impress and keep at a discreet arm's distance.

"This is quite a place you have here," Candi murmurs, throaty and low, which would almost be sultry except she can barely stand on those five inch heels. They look a bit like crossbow quarrels, and that thought makes him smile. Candi takes that for a cue and moves in, kicking the door shut.

Candi sank a battleship's worth of kamikazes at the bar, and her breath is a high-proof combination of lime and mints. Bruce leans into the kiss, which is messy but pleasant, and her fingers wind into his hair with unexpected force. His mind is already on the night ahead. He blinks when she bites his lower lip. She grins. Her blue eyes are blurry. He peers into them in concern, and hopes she doesn't need a trip to the ER.

No: the pulse at her neck is slow and steady, her skin is warm, and she's focusing, just not very well. She'll have a hell of a headache tomorrow, but she's okay.

"Lie back," he says gently, which gets him another, surprisingly crooked grin: it makes her look much younger, much less polished, and much more likeable. She collapses backward onto the bed, getting immediately lost in the resulting up-puff of feather duvet on either side of her, and spends a goofy, unscripted minute laughing and batting ineffectually at the blankets. Watching, Bruce feels a startling twinge of genuine fondness for her. She is twenty three if she's a day, in a high-pressure world of glitz and backstabbing, yet somehow she is still hanging onto a thread of belief in the goodness of her fellow humans: it was this that drew him to her out of all the women at the bar he could have brought home, and he's still not sure that impulse was a kind one. She looks like a smooth-skinned, sleepy kitten in Gucci on his bed, playing with pillows, her hands moving ever more slowly and her eyelids fighting the weight of all those kamikazes. He feels cold and faraway, a statue of himself made of some ancient metal, frozen forever in the same moment.

"I'll be right back," he says, having to work this time to keep his voice gentle, and slides into the open door of the bath with his hands twitching toward fists. The man that meets him in the full length mirror has the wildly rumpled hair and red-rubbed mouth of a debauched playboy and the flat, empty eyes of a hit man. He leans against the wall and breathes.

_What I do that defines me,_ he thinks, because that is what he has, that's what he always had, even before he knew what he needed to do with it; and he settles his knotted muscles strand by strand. Rachel's ghost is painting the air in purples outside the window. Her voice is all the goad he needs.

Candi is out cold when he tiptoes back into the bedroom, arms outflung, snoring faintly.

In the morning Alfred will feed her and usher her out with flawless courtesy, and she'll hint at a wild night of sex if the tabloids corner her, because even if she remembers differently, she knows how this game is played. Bruce hopes she sleeps through the night: she looked tired, under the kittenish smile and the make-up.

His bedroom is down a hall hidden from the view of the living room and Tweedle's gaze, and the door to this room only opens by thumbprint. Alfred is inside, a faint figure in the corner, hands casually in pockets and white head tilted, looking out the windows. Bruce starts, then wonders if he's interrupted a rare moment of personal time, because his butler doesn't acknowledge him right away.

That hair used to be seal-brown, but not much else about the man has changed in the last twenty years.

"Will she be needing a ride home, master Wayne?" Alfred says, and Bruce doesn't think he's imagining the faint note of accusation. He pauses, running through the events of the last few days, not finding what might have pissed Alfred off: it's been business as usual, with the exception of a pack of detectives following him around in shifts.

"I think she'll probably sleep through," he replies, choosing to answer the question and not the tone. There's too much memory in him tonight, too much violence hiding under his skin. Too many bad people doing bad things that deserve to be the target of it, and Alfred doesn't, never will. "I'll be out late."

"Of course, sir."

Definitely accusation. He'll worry about it later. The only suit out of a thousand tailored clothes that really fits him is in the closet, which opens on another thumbprint and a 17-digit code; and he's got a lot to do, if he wants to get the GCPD out of his apartment.

He's got a lot to do anyway, with Rugetti stalking the streets looking for a way to own them, and a whole police force more interested in nabbing Batman than taking down the new mob in town.

Alfred offers a silent nod to the Bat and opens the door out onto the balcony

The night washes over him like a benediction, clean and uncompromising, filtering out everything but useful rage. He picks a point and a moment and drops, hearing the line sing behind him. The dark catches him.

The dark always does.


	5. Chapter 5

Gordon's house is lightless and silent, which would be reasonable at 2 am for anyone but Jim Gordon.

Batman spends a moment watching the windows and then heads via rooftop to the MCU, where the Commissioner's office is lit and the Commissioner is perfectly still at his desk, pen in hand, glasses slowly inching down his nose. He's sitting bolt upright like sleep took him completely by surprise.

He disarms the security on the window and slips inside, then isn't sure what to do when Gordon doesn't immediately wake up. Gordon looks exhausted and unexpectedly vulnerable with his eyes closed, and he finds himself struggling with the rather silly impulse to shut off the light and tiptoe out of the room.

He edges into the shadow behind the door to lurk and think about it, his shoulders and knuckles aching. His gauntlets are spattered with blood. There's a knife wound doing a slow burn into his left side where one of Rugetti's bruisers got a lucky hit in, and the deeper, healing bullet wound on his right side is playing a miserable counterpoint. The combination has put a set of shivers deep in the muscles of his abdomen. A moment without movement is a welcome thing.

He can hear cops moving around in the bull pen outside Gordon's office. There's a picture on the table he's standing beside: Gordon's kids, their blood tie evident more in their attitudes than their features. The girl's arm is wrapped protectively about the little boy, both of them staring into the camera with an almost defiant air of solidarity. There is no wife in evidence, and by that and the shadows under the boy's eyes, the way his older sister stands like she's prepared to plant a tiny fist in anyone who comes too close, he knows this picture was taken after Gordon's wife left. After Dent shattered their lives.

He's not one to dwell heavily on should-haves -the cowl and cape force a totally present-moment approach to most things- but he's fairly sure much of the pain running under the surface of this simple image can be laid at his feet.

There's no fixing it that he can think of. The things Batman's equipped for are violent things, sneaky things, scary things: not stitching lives and marriages back together. And Batman getting involved _now_ certainly wouldn't help matters, in any case.

He wonders how much destruction he's scattered in his wake that nobody's ever called him on.

Deciding that Gordon could use the rest, he slides a packet of photos out of the utility belt and into his gloved hand, and notices that this too has collected some blood, probably because most of rest of him is lightly misted with it. He almost wipes it on his cape before he thinks how that would look (and how little good it would do). As he moves the burn in his side becomes a breathless, glassy spike. Gordon takes a breath and shifts: is eyes snap open and go from sleep-distant to sharp and totally present in a fascinating half-second as he looks into the shadow on the other side of his office. His hand eases off his sidearm.

"I was starting to worry," Gordon says, and Bruce freezes before he remembers that he's Batman, and this isn't a scolding for vanishing from his penthouse under the noses of two of Gordon's people.

"I've been busy."

"Rugetti's working hard to get a grip on the Narrows. I figured you were." Gordon rises, only the smallest

hesitation betraying the effort it takes. The bruise from the bullet he took protecting Wayne ought to be a sickly shade of green by now, the swelling mostly gone. He slides the packet out of Batman's hand, his gaze taking in the blood-spattered armor, then narrowing. "You're hurt," he says.

"It's nothing." Though it is going to be a bit of a bitch vanishing from the window now.

Gordon frowns. "It's bleeding," he shoots back, that droll humor that often pops out at moments of stress evident in his voice. "Don't disappear on me yet, please. I've got something for you too. Hold on a sec."

He turns to his desk, opens a cabinet, pulls something out and hesitates, then pulls out two more things. Batman breathes a quiet sigh, held in place by the weary line of Gordon's shoulders and a certain amount of curiosity, but when Gordon turns around cradling a manila folder, a small roll of gauze, and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, he wishes he'd taken the opportunity and ducked out the damn window. The man _can't_ be serious.

His annoyance must be showing. Gordon shrugs too casually, gestures toward his side with the hand holding the gauze.

"You're dripping on my carpet," he says dryly.

_Oh. _Hell.

He moves a foot, sees the small puddle that's collected beside it, and silently curses the need for armor he can move easily in, which necessarily means armor that doesn't deflect all blows, blades, or bullets. So it wasn't quite as shallow a hit as he thought. Maybe he should look into chain mail.

The thought of Batman rattling around Gotham like Marley's ghost is almost funny.

Gordon hands him half of the gauze roll. He stares at it, calculating the distance to the window (5.6 feet), the distance to the penthouse (11.2 miles), and the size of the puddle (growing). He takes the gauze, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. The Bat's not much of an eye-roller. Gordon seems to know what he's not doing anyway; his mustache moves in a small smile Batman decides he's going to pretend he didn't see.

The gauze, pressed to the small tear in his side, soaks through in a matter of seconds. Gordon's face loses all humor.

"Shit," Gordon breathes, opens the bottle and spills some peroxide on the rest of the gauze, and shoves the wet pile at Batman before turning back to the cabinet. "I don't care how tough you are, you're not gonna be able to ignore that."

_This _would be the moment to head for the window. But he's fighting a familiar dizziness that says shock is a possibility if he stresses his body too much, and the wound is starting to really hurt now, like it was just waiting to be noticed before getting down to business.

Perfect. This is just perfect.

Gordon has a phone in his hand.

"_No_," Batman says, pressing hard to stop the bleeding, and that maybe makes his voice harsher than he planned. Gordon turns, holding still until it's not possible to meet that clear, kind look. He flicks a hand in defeat, permission for whatever Gordon wants to do. The man has trusted him beyond reason, beyond wisdom, certainly well beyond common sense: that has to go both ways at least some of the time.

Leaping off the building would be far easier, hole in his side or not.

Bruce brings his eyes back and nods, glad the cowl hides his pulse. Gordon's gaze stays on him, worried, wondering, accepting, seeing too much. He brings the phone to his ear, taps a button. "Montoya," Gordon says, calm and quiet, still not looking away. "How many people are out there now? Right. Can you get the kit from behind Ali's desk and get in here without attracting any attention? No. Yeah. That. Play it however you have to. Make it fast, please."

Montoya. Of course. This just can't get any better.

She appears less than a minute later, while he's trying not to hiss at the deep sting of peroxide soaking into the open wound and Gordon is trying to make him sit down. She swings the door open with a subdued "Hey, commish, I know it's late but z'now a good time to go over the Wayne file? I have something you ought to look at."

Oh, for fuck's sake. This has to be a joke. They figured him out and now they're playing a really tasteless joke.

"Sure, come in," Gordon says.

Montoya closes the door. Too outraged at the universe and its awful sense of humor to pay much attention to the pain he's in, Bruce braces a heel, locks his knee, and slips the catch on his armor that will unlock the plate just above the cut on his side. He peels the armor back around the seam and immediately wishes he hadn't. Blood leaks out in runnels. The inside of the armor is wet with it. How did he not notice how bad this was? Gordon presses more gauze to bare skin and Bruce grits his teeth, feeling horribly exposed, though it's only a few square inches of him that's become visible.

"I see I got here in time for the strip tease," Montoya deadpans, and goddammit, she is _never allowed near Alfred again_. She drops a gym bag that wafts sweat and deodorant up at them when it's opened, wrestles out a large red medic's kit and pries the lid up. "Are we talking cartoon band aids or stitches? I should tell you, I'm only rated for band aids. My first aid certification expired last month."

"Neither," Bruce growls, already knowing better. How the fuck does everything go wrong around these people?

"You sure? We have some Hello Kitty ones that would go great with that suit."

"Montoya, shut up," Gordon says, but his voice is strained, and it's not fear. There's a grin trying to push its way onto his face. It makes him look a little less tired. "Antiseptic, antibiotic ointment, and a big bandage with no damn cats on it, please."

Bruce thinks of smacking them both upside their heads and leaving via the front door. Maybe blowing a hole in a wall or two on the way out for good measure. Instead he trades his bloody wad of gauze for a dry handful. Housekeeping isn't going to love the Commissioner tomorrow. "You're probably going to need stitches," Gordon is muttering. "I don't think it's cut into the muscle, but it's deep. At least it's clotting now. And… I guess you're probably used to that. So we'll just get you patched up enough to get to. Um. Wherever you go."

Montoya saves them from a spectacularly uncomfortable silence by shoving their hands aside and spraying fucking _Bactine_ on him, which is a few short steps up in dignity from Hello Kitty and a lollipop for being good. Bruce sends her a look meant to instill fear in the hearts of ordinary mortals: Montoya just shakes her head and dabs at the blood still welling out of his side. She's kneeling in front of him, her head more or less at the level of his lower rib cage, and she manages to convey her awareness of the absurdity of this position with nothing but eyebrow bobs and a tiny smirk. Every muscle in his abdomen winches tight in either pain or pique, he can't even tell the goddammed difference anymore.

"So, you work out?" Montoya says with perfect, expressionless irony, and Bruce is too surprised to catch himself: he snorts, and then glares up at the ceiling tiles, fighting the smile off his face.

Gordon clears his throat hard, obviously still battling that grin. Amazingly, Montoya lets the moment pass without comment, busy with a bandage that looks, from the lower edge of his vision, like it was meant to wrap around the thigh of an elephant. Somehow it fits in the small space his armor has left open: she presses it in place, then grabs his hand and slaps it over the bandage.

"That ought to keep you from leaving a trail of breadcrumbs all the way home," she declares, and then looks down at the hand she used to grab his blood-slick glove and grimaces. "Ew. Do I want to know whose blood _this_ is?"

"Not mine," Bruce snarls, and puts the armor back in place before something else can go horribly wrong. This whole night is shot to hell already, but he honestly doesn't want to know how much worse it can get.

"Okay, hero. Now sit down for a damn minute, will you? Have some orange juice and a cookie. Your chin's all pale."

He stares at her, frozen in the process of buckling his armor back together. He can't think of a single thing to say.

Apparently neither can Gordon, who throws them a single wide-eyed glance, then gives in with a small, weary noise and rests his head in one hand, back turned, shoulders shaking with silent laughter. The packet dangles from his other hand.

"Sir?" Montoya chirps.

"Dear god. You two," Gordon wheezes, and stumbles a step back to sit on his office couch, palm over his eyes, totally undone. It's not a sight he's ever witnessed as either Wayne or Batman. Bruce is about ready to risk shock and take the window's promise of, if not dignity (he may never get that back), then at least solitude - and then all his outrage falls to ash as he understands.

Montoya, still crouched in front of him and watching her boss, smiles a small, satisfied smile.

Oh, hell. He _is _going to have to like her, and after being in the crosshairs of her too-sharp wit for the last fifteen minutes, he'd really rather not. But Gordon is winded and flushed and more alive-looking. Some of the slump has gone from his shoulders. His eyes are a little brighter when he pulls his hand down and looks at them sidelong, still chuckling. And Montoya looks- relieved, maybe a little sad.

Bruce breathes a small, resigned sigh, and offers her a hand up.

She pulls another face but takes it, stands, and then wipes her hand on her pants. "You ought to carry a pack of wet-wipes around if this is going to be a regular thing," she mutters, apparently not quite done needling him. It must be her default setting. He can't imagine what it must be like having to share an office with her.

"I'll add that to the list," Bruce says dryly, or as dryly as he can in Batman's rasp. Montoya's slow, surprised grin is worth answering, but he doesn't.

Gordon, meanwhile, has sobered and is rifling through the packet. He slides photo after photo out, looking intently at them. "These are Rugetti's people," he says, and Bruce just barely manages not to wilt in sheer relief at the change of subject. "I know these two. Muscle, crew boss. Jack Dunrak. Nasty character. But I don't know who this is. Granted, it would be hard to."

The print he waves is the one Bruce has spent the most time on, since he has the same problem. The man hovering at the edge of the image is slender but has a jaw like a pitbull. Violence hides in the bend of his elbows, the skewed, cocksure cant of his shoulders. A cap is pulled low over his brow; there's a shadow of nose and a glint that suggests eyes, a stripe of streetlight painting something white and cloth-like over his cheekbone. Not nearly enough for facial recognition points. He is standing against the bricks like a back-alley czar, his attitude announcing that he owns the street and the men he's speaking to, who by their averted gazes agree with his estimation.

_This_ is the problem. This isn't Rugetti. It's someone telling Rugetti's men what to do, and they're doing it, but whoever he is he's never been seen within five miles of Rugetti's claimed territory.

"New," Bruce grunts. "He's involved in some way in the recent hospital supply thefts. Maybe running them. Might something to do with a cache of experimental weapons stolen from Klein Incorporated's research division."

Which is owned by Wayne Enterprises, but that's neither here nor there.

Gordon flicks him a frowning look, eyes full of thought. "New player," he says ruefully. "Just what we need. Any idea what he's after?"

"Not yet. I'm-"

"-Looking into it, yeah," Gordon finishes, smiling a little. "I know. Here. We're going to be raiding a lot of Narrows warehouses and tenements in the next few weeks. We should get the warrants tomorrow or Thursday. You might want to steer clear of these addresses."

Montoya's face goes perfectly blank. Bruce can tell his own face is doing the same thing, and it's probably obvious even under the cowl. Gordon holds out a sheet with his familiar handwriting running across it, and Bruce doesn't take it.

Meeting with Batman, accepting information and occasional help from a vigilante most of the world thinks is also a murderer: that's bad. Upholding a lie meant to keep the city from coming apart at the seams is something else, something harder. This, though, would get the new Commissioner not just fired but arrested. And he wrote it down in his own hand, knowing that, willing to risk it because -

God, _why_?

Bruce shoots a glance at Montoya to gage her reaction and finds her staring right back, her eyes cold and fierce and not at all amused now: cop's eyes. He puts a black-gloved hand out and gently tips the sheet, committing every word to memory, and then pushes it away.

"Burn that," he rasps.

"Take it. For god's sake, my people will shoot you on sight. Do you understand that?"

He understands it all too well, thank you, and he has the bruises to remind him if he forgets. He would no more stay away from the Narrows and its crime-ridden streets, its struggling and frightened people, than he would leave the GCPD to risk their lives against Rugetti's thugs alone. Allies are a luxury; enemies are why Batman exists. "That's my problem."

"No. It's not just your problem, son. It's _not_." There's something at once pained and severe and pleading in Gordon's glare, something that sits between them and bleeds. Bruce can feel it tying knots in his stomach, and he tenses against the need to draw a deep breath, to flinch away from that too-naked stare. Gordon pushes his glasses up, sighs. "I need you to get used to that idea."

The room is too small, suddenly, too close. Bruce stalks to the window. Batman doesn't stick around for goodbyes, and he can just drop out of arguments. It's one of the things he likes best about Batman. He'd be happier if he could just disappear, but the shape he's in right now, he'd have to shut off the power to the whole building to make that happen, and that seems a little petty.

"Always nice to see you, Bats," Montoya says as he's swinging himself out of the frame. The wound in his side wakes at the movement, send little shocks through his side, definitely not improving his mood. Alfred's going to give him an earful later. "Stop by any dead-of-the-night. We'll have tea next time."

Gordon just watches him go, standing there with his shoulders slowly taking on that familiar shape, like there's an invisible pack strapped to them. It's painful to watch.

He's tired of things hurting. He glances down at a six story drop, back at Gordon. "They'll hit Gotham General next. Let them. I've planted trackers in the pain medication supply."

He doesn't wait to see what effect this declaration has: just falls backward into the night.


	6. Chapter 6

Alfred has a sadistic streak hidden under that all that old-world polish.

Sunlight falls across his face like a slap, and Bruce curls away from it, flailing an arm out in search of a pillow to hide under. There isn't one. He fumbles farther, and cracks one eye to find that there aren't any goddammed pillows on the bed. In fact, there isn't anything: he's lying in a pair of boxer shorts on a fitted sheet, and his butler is a looming shadow in a bow tie above him, white hair backlit and glowing in the daylight. He suffers a vivid flashback to fifth grade, being dragged whining and cranky out of twisted blankets and bad dreams, stuffed into the shower, dressed in time for school. The memory knocks the protest he's about to make right out of his mouth, and he blinks up at Alfred, speechless and sleep-stupid.

"Rise and shine, master Wayne, it's a new day."

"Where are the _blankets_?"

"Heading for the wash. More likely the bin, as I rather doubt they can be salvaged. I believe I'll look into crime scene clean-up operations for your laundry service, sir."

He's in for a long day.

He squints down at his scarred stomach, fingers sliding over the bandage, which has crumpled and warped in whatever gymnastics he performed in his sleep. Either that or in the short-lived fight he had with a would-be mugger on the corner of 33rd and Washburn on the way back to the penthouse at 4 am. He should probably have stitched it shut himself before falling into bed, but his limbs had been slow and heavy by the time he'd gotten the suit off, and in the living room Tweedle was stirring, getting ready to trade shifts with his partner.

Dry, tacky blood smears his skin from ribs to hip bone. The sheet under him looks like it belongs at some of the crime scenes he's visited. Bruce pushes himself up on an elbow, frowning, pressing in where he can feel the edges of the wound. It hurts, but not nearly as much as he'd expect. Alfred leans a little closer, examines the mess, and taps one stub-nailed finger on the rolled edge of the bandage.

Then he rips it off like a magician doing the old tablecloth trick, taking a hundred fine tiny hairs with it. Bruce stuffs his knuckles in his mouth, glaring.

"Best done quickly, sir," Alfred says with no sympathy whatsoever.

It's not bleeding anymore, which is probably good, Bruce decides. But it looks ragged and swollen, and something pulls inside when he moves his leg- so there is some muscle damage. He can't believe he didn't notice that last night when he was rappelling down the side of the MCU.

He can't believe it doesn't hurt more right now.

"Looks like Batman's getting a little slow. Maybe you ought to think about taking a night off, sir."

"There were seven of them, Alfred."

"Time was, seven thugs couldn't hardly make Batman break a sweat. Now you come home with holes in you and ruin the bedding. Will you be wanting breakfast, master Wayne?"

Oh yes, Alfred's pissed off.

Bruce eyes him, mostly naked, sleep crusted in his eyes and dried sweat making his hair arc stiffly off his forehead in a way that probably makes him impossible to take seriously right now. His butler is as smooth-faced as always, but there's a shadow in his firm gaze, and new lines have drawn themselves at the edges of his eyes and mouth. Alfred's getting older. It's not a new thought -he grew up with the man- but he must still be half-asleep, because thinking it right now while he's shivering in the cool air and trying to make the rest of his neurons fire fills him with pure, unreasoning panic.

Fear's something he wrapped both his hands around a long time ago, but this is a bit different.

"Time was Batman didn't have to dodge the police while fighting crime," Bruce says coolly, and pushes himself out of bed, because Alfred's going to sit right here and nag until he does, he just knows it. The twitch of a pale eyebrow tells him he just inadvertently made Alfred's point for him.

Christ, he needs coffee. Why isn't there coffee? He shouldn't be forced to speak coherently in his own defense at -he glances at the clock. Freezes. Then he turns and glowers.

"_Eight am_?" he says. "I've only been asleep for a few hours."

"Four, technically, sir."

"It's _morning_."

"Funny how that keeps coming after night, sir, isn't it. Mr. Fox wanted to speak with you about the drugs stolen from Gotham's hospitals. Perhaps you could ask him about improvements in Batman's armor while he's here."

It's too early for withering British sarcasm.

Bruce rubs his face, contemplating pushups, but his left side looks like it might start leaking again if he tries and he's starting to worry a little about how numb it is. He's had knife wounds before. They're in a class of their own for pain, a burrowing, hard kind that feels like the blade is still trapped in the flesh, except he knows for a fact that actually feels far worse. He presses on the red, raised skin around the cut again.

"Looks like you had a hard night, Mr. Wayne," Lucius drawls, and Bruce sighs, defeated. Even Batman has no hope of taking on Lucius and Alfred at the same time.

"Yeah," he mutters. "Don't suppose you've come up with something that blocks bullets _and _knives yet."

"Sure. We have a tank in R&D that ought to do the trick." Lucius tosses a briefcase on the bed and sticks his hands in the pockets of his creased khakis, the picture of casual Southern elegance. Bruce remembers he's in his underwear and casts a desperate glance around his bedroom, hoping clothes will magically appear before him. A bathrobe. Something. His gaze hits the mirror and bounces away in horror. He's still got traces of black paint around his eyelids. His hair looks outraged to find itself on his head. He's a little appalled it's there himself, to be honest. Lucius usually waits in the living room.

He's definitely not in the living room now. He comes closer, peers at the knife wound. "That looks a little odd, Mr. Wayne," he says, managing to make getting stabbed sound like maybe having a funny-shaped mole appear on your back. Bruce is starting to feel fairly ridiculous. He snatches a bathrobe out of the closet as Lucius snaps his briefcase open and pulls out a swab kit.

It's a sad state of affairs, Bruce thinks, when his CEO feels it necessary to bring something like that along to morning meetings just in case.

"Mind?" Lucius murmurs, and swipes an overlong q-tip around the edge of the wound. Bruce sucks in a breath and doesn't flinch. "That hurt?"

"Not much."

Lucius straightens, gives him a cool, skeptical look. "So either you're slowly killing your response to pain, Mr. Wayne, or there's something a little sinister going on here, that about right?"

He _really_ needs coffee. He folds the robe around himself. "I guess."

"Well, let's run this and see what pops, Mr. Wayne. In the meantime, I think you ought to have something for that."

Alfred approaches, holding a syringe.

"What do I need to know?" Bruce asks, flat and resigned. Lucius slides a sheet out of the briefcase, passes it over. Bruce gives it a quick look, just long enough to understand he's seeing molecular diagrams and lists of chemical compounds. It reminds him unpleasantly of trying to pass chem at Princeton: he always preferred physics, even when he was busy giving his professors reasons to fail him in spite of his full tuition. "It's too early for this. Can you please just give me the highlights?"

"Norucon, Mr. Wayne. Norucon and oxycontin. Those were the targets of the supply thefts at Gotham's hospitals."

Bruce eyes the syringe warily. "I know what oxy is. What's norucon?"

Lucius tips his head, folds his arms. "A muscle relaxant. They use it before surgery to prevent patients from moving while they're out. And the GCPD's crime lab has been finding traces of a new chemical compound present at what they're calling abandoned meth labs, and also a few crime scenes: that compound is oxy and norucon. Not easy to make. Somebody who knows that they're doing has cooked up a new drug, Mr. Wayne, a drug meant to slow a person down, keep them from knowing they're hurt. Or how badly they're hurt, anyway. Seems like there are only a few uses for something like that, really."

More than one new player in town, apparently.

Unless his mysterious faceless man in the Narrows is also a chemist. It seems unlikely. Better chance faceless is working with the chemist, or for the chemist. Bruce chews his lip and thinks, running over the forensics gathered from the last few drug deals Batman cleaned out, the odd behavior of Rugetti's grunts.

What the chemist is after is a question, and at this point, he's already got plenty of questions he needs to answer. Wayne's hairbrained babbling at the charity ball may actually in handy: the GCPD crime lab is definitely going to need a serious upgrade. Batman may need some backup. He _hates_ it when he needs backup.

People always seem to get killed when he needs backup.

He's clutching the paper too hard; it's crumpled. He sets it on the bed and stares down at his side, up at Lucius, who has a faint, amused glint in his eye that says he's already worked out the solution, but also the familiar grim set to his jaw that means he doesn't think he's won the day quite yet. He points at the syringe. "So that..."

"Neostigmine and naloxin. Reverses the effects."

"Good thing I've got you on my side," Bruce quips, but it doesn't come out as light as he planned. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the look Lucius and Alfred trade, one that he's caught them exchanging more and more in the last month: but it's not worth wondering what they're on about. He's got a lot to do. Not much of it can be done from this penthouse.

"I think Wayne Enterprises needs to make a donation to the GCPD."

"The forensic lab? Oh, I think we can find some old equipment lying around they might be willing to take." Trust Lucius to know exactly what he plans. He gets another one of those looks: sly, from the side, but with worry hiding behind that cool intelligence. "And with Bruce Wayne under their protection, well, it only makes sense they should have the best."

That's as good a reason as any, but just the idea of playing it out, of press conferences and board meetings and grinning until his face hurts, of Gordon wearing that gentle, impatient look that says he's too kind to give away that he thinks he's dealing with a hopeless idiot, makes Bruce tired and irritated. Getting stabbed with a drug-coated knife seems more appealing. He swallows a sigh, sits on the edge of the bed so Alfred can slide the needle into the muscle beside the wound. Alfred's expression doesn't change while he pushes the plunger home. The new lines at Alfred's eyes are still kicking things loose inside him, so he stares out the window instead. "I don't suppose this makes me immune to it in the future?"

"Not remotely, Mr. Wayne." Lucius is dipping the swab into a test tube, where it turns the fluid inside to a vivid pinkish color. He grimaces, dumps the contents into a container and packs everything into a small biohazard container that goes right back in the suitcase, and dear god, the man does come prepared. "Coated the knife with it," he mutters. "Not a very effective means of delivery, which is probably why you didn't drop like a stone. But you're going to want to carry some of my concoction around with you until we find out who's doing this."

The _we_ is heartening.

Lucius has left a handful of needle-free syringes on the bare bed. Sunlight sparks off the pale amber fluid inside them. "I have some leads," Bruce says.

Not many, though. He sees several nights chasing criminals and dodging cops ahead of him, and the thought wakes him up a little more.

"I'll bet you do, Mr. Wayne. I'll bet you do. Come by sometime this week and we'll run through a few improvements to your wardrobe. A man should be at his best when he goes out for a night on the town in this city."

Nothing ever knocks Lucius off balance. Lucius strolls out the bedroom door like he's in a park taking in the view, an admirable ease, a man pleased with his morning's work.

"I suppose I'd better stitch myself up," Bruce murmurs. It's becoming very clear that something was hiding the depth of the damage last night: he can feel every centimeter of it now. Laying down seems like an appealing way to spend the rest of the day. "Is Candi still here?"

"I saw her out an hour ago, sir. She was very impressed with your commitment to your handball team."

He pauses on the way to the shower; hangs his head. _Handball._ Alfred has all sorts of ways of getting revenge, but the alibis he creates for Bruce's endless disappearances are his favorite.

"That's very droll, Alfred," Bruce mutters, and hears a soft hum of satisfaction behind him before he shuts the door.


	7. Chapter 7

He avoids the MCU for a while.

There are plenty of good reasons why -faceless is a busy man- but as the nights pass Bruce has a harder time ignoring the nagging little voice in the back of his head that tells him he's being a coward. It's got a suspiciously British-sounding accent, that voice.

The designer drug has hit the streets, called, simply and unimaginatively, Freeze. Forty cases in Gotham's ERs in two days, mostly young men, arriving with dazed eyes and awful wounds from all sorts of stupidity. Robberies and street fights are rising. The night has barely started and he's broken up three already, tied one raving boy completely unaware of his shattered nose and knuckles to a fire escape for the GCPD to find. _I'm a god_, the boy had babbled, not even struggling as Batman bound his wrists. _It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts. Do you have any idea what that's like?_ Then, blinking into temporary awareness, eyes widening at the sight of the cowl: _The fuck have you __been__, man?_

The tone of betrayal is endearingly naïve and more than a little stupid, coming from someone he's just punched repeatedly in the face, but he can't find it funny. It stings, actually.

If he hadn't vanished in the month after Dent's (_Rachel's_ the nagging little voice corrects) death; if he hadn't taken the first flight out of the country he could find, bearing nothing but the clothes he'd woken up in and a false passport, fleeing the endless reminders of everything he'd lost, everything he'd given, everyone he'd failed. If he hadn't told himself Gotham needed to lick its wounds in peace exactly as much as he did, then maybe.

-If he'd never come up with the goddamned lie in the first place, as the only way to salvage a disaster, as the only way left to win - but there are hundreds of criminals that would be on the streets then, Maroni's henchmen, Falcone's: there are _thousands_ of people who believed in Harvey, who deserve to keep believing.

There are reasons, good reasons.

But maybe this kid would be home playing World of Warcraft instead of lying on beer-stained pavement chained to a fire escape, bleeding and high and looking at 4-6 months for armed robbery.

It's too hypothetical an _if f_or Batman, who mostly deals in _now_ and the moments immediately following _now_. But it sticks in his head like a burr, and when he finds himself crouching above a familiar porch in the early hours of the morning, he's not entirely surprised.

The windows are dark. It suits him: he doesn't want a conversation. He has an ampoule of Lucius' antidote on his belt, and Gordon can get this where it has to go, see that it's duplicated. The balcony door is appallingly easy to open, the lock barely needing any effort. Not even a deadbolt. He's irritated all over again, because Gordon's job comes with threats and he doesn't live in the best part of the city and he knows better, or he should.

The kitchen is lit by nothing but distant streetlight, making the pale countertop and the fridge glow sallowly. His boots creak softly on linoleum. He can smell stale cigarette smoke and the sweet-sharp tang of whiskey, the fading ghosts of hundreds of pots of coffee. As he sets the ampoule on the counter with a note, he sees a figure slumped at the table in the dining room beyond, and he's moving before he knows he's going to, pressing gloved fingers to Gordon's neck, blood roaring in his ears. Gordon makes a startled noise and Batman jerks back, breathing shallowly, the cowl pressing too hard against skin suddenly hot with mingled relief and fury.

"You making house calls now?" Gordon mutters, voice gravelly and dragging with sleep and possibly a little too much of the whiskey sitting in the glass by his left hand. Batman shifts another step backward, then forces himself still, his breathing slow.

"When I need to."

"How's the cut on your side?" Gordon is remarkably calm for a man waking up to find the Bat in his kitchen. He pushes himself upright, rubs his forehead, puts his glasses on. His hair is sticking up on one side where his head rested on his arm, and it makes him look too much like his little boy. His right hand slides off the papers, and NOTICE OF DIVORCE comes clear at the top of the sheet.

Shit. _Shit_.

"What time is it? -God. I need coffee. What are you here for?"

The man looks like he hasn't slept in days. But his eyes are clearing, taking on the familiar look of the cop thinking about the cop's job, and Batman's certainly not in a position to criticize someone using work as a distraction from other things less easy to contemplate.

Words are trying to crawl up out of his throat, and none of them make any sense, or are of any use.

He turns and strides back into the kitchen. Gordon keeps his coffee in the freezer, like most civilized people. The filters are a little harder to find, and he opens three cupboard doors before he locates them, and then discovers peeling one from the stack is impossible in gloves. Gordon pads in barefoot to lean against the threshold and watch, blinking and bewildered; and he can grant that this is probably a pretty strange sight, Batman making coffee, hands bare and very pale against the matte black of the suit.

"This is a new service," Gordon remarks, humor beginning to push the gravel out of his tone.

He still can't think of anything to say, and not just because he's aware of how absurd this moment has gotten (that much seems to be par for the course with the GCPD these days, or at least the handful that aren't trying to shoot him as soon as they see him). When he bothered to think about it, he always assumed that Gordon's wife would come back eventually; that she only needed time to allow the terror of that night to fade out of their lives.

Divorce is very final.

There are a host of _if_s crowding his thoughts again. If he'd been faster, been smarter; if he'd turned himself in before Dent had a chance to make his stupid sacrifice; if he hadn't saved Dent. If he had saved Rachel. If he'd taken the chance he'd been given, run the Joker down like the mad dog he'd proved himself to be. Broken his rule.

If he'd never put the mask on, never showed up in Gordon's office armed with a stapler and his blind, consuming certainty that he was doing something necessary. That he could make things better.

Is _this _better? The city reeling in the aftermath of loss and appalling violence, a madman's obsession with the man in the mask? The man he chose for an ally standing alone in the ruin of his life, sleeping in stolen moments at a kitchen table? Is _this_ what he was hoping to achieve?

_The fuck have you __been__, man?_

He has no idea.

A hand appears at the edge of his vision, startling him badly enough that he jerks sideways, nearly lashes out with a fist. Gordon's grip closes carefully over his arm above the elbow, just above the blades on his gauntlet. "Have a cup," Gordon says, and edges him out of the way to grab two mugs out of the sink. "I'm assuming you take it black."

"I'm sorry."

He hears the words before he realizes he is speaking, and thinks _This right here is why Batman doesn't deal in hypotheticals, jackass._ Gordon straightens, half-turns, brows raised: and then his gaze moves to the dining room and the table, the paper sitting there. His jaw knots. He turns back to pour.

This would be another excellent moment to disappear, and he can't do it.

"That for me?" Gordon grunts, aiming an elbow at the ampoule where it's waiting by the toaster oven.

"Antidote. Get it to Gotham General: they have the equipment to synthesize it. Your people ought to carry some with them. Rugetti's men are using Freeze on their weapons."

"Which is why you nearly bled out on my carpet the other night," Gordon surmises, and passes him a chipped blue mug. Batman takes it against his better judgment, because _coffee_, and Gordon leans his hip against the fridge in the dim yellow streetlight. "I'll do my best to see my people have it on hand. Most of us don't try to finish out the night once we've been stabbed, though: we go to a hospital."

The mug in his hand says WORLD'S BEST DAD. Batman tips his own mug to his lips to hide a wince, and Gordon's mouth quirks on one side at the faint sound of the cup clinking against his cowl.

"I let her think I was dead," Gordon says, when the silence is starting to feel like it might crush them both. "There were good reasons, but the truth is they're never good enough. A cop's life isn't an easy one to be part of. And Jimmy and Babs…"

He trails off, acknowledging with a small shrug that he knows he doesn't need to explain potential hostages to a man wearing a mask to do his night's work. There's too much effort in that gesture. The coffee is cooling rapidly, and it's too strong, probably, though Gordon gives no evidence that he thinks it tastes like caffeinated paint thinner. He still can't think of a single thing to say. The Bat's tendency toward terse commentary and uninformative silence is usually a comfort, but it's strangling him now.

"It's not your fault, son," Gordon says gently.

It _is,_ goddamn him.

"It's _not_," Gordon says again, and for a second Bruce thinks he must have spoken that last thought aloud, but no: Gordon's just reading whatever expression he has on his face, in his eyes. He tends to think of the cowl as rendering him invisible, swallowed by the symbol, but Jim Gordon can remind him in half a second that he's still in the world, part of it, still giving signals.

He works with _detectives_, for god's sake: people trained to read other people. It's a stupid mistake to make, and somehow he can't learn from it, keeps making it.

"Dawes wasn't your fault either," Gordon adds, much softer, almost like he'd rather not be heard. But Bruce does hear, and can't do anything about the fist of anger and guilt and bone-deep, brutal grief that shoves up from his guts into his throat. A month wandering Jakarta penniless, losing himself in the basic struggle for survival, losing Wayne, losing Batman, losing _Gotham_, and he hasn't beaten it down yet.

Gordon looks at the cup he's turning in his hands, and then finds something important to do at the sink, so he knows much of that made it past the mask too.

He sets the chipped mug gently down on the counter.

When he turns Gordon's holding his gloves, which he left on the counter (jesus _fuck_, he might as well have left his brain there). Gordon runs a thumb over the filaments on the palms, the plates on the knuckles, brow furrowing with curiosity. "We've been working on something that might be connected to all this," he says, handing the gloves over with a look that says he knows perfectly well that he's letting Batman off the hook by changing the subject. It make Bruce feel about ten years old. "Assassination attempt. A Czech group was hired for it, pretty well known in certain circles. They didn't manage it, and it looks like the hit was put back out there, may have been taken up by some local talent."

Bruce feels a sense of impending doom fall over him like a shadow, and fights the urge to stalk into the dining room and finish off the glass of bourbon Gordon left at the table. "Who," he grates, and doesn't manage to keep the resignation out of his voice: Gordon flicks a startled look at him.

"Bruce Wayne."

Of _course_.


	8. Chapter 8

Faceless is disturbingly skilled at avoiding CCTV cameras.

There's no evidence he knows where they are -he certainly never looks up- but he manages to hover at the fringes of any image he appears in, rendered invisible by both shadow and the odd, porous-looking cloth that blocks view of his features. Bruce has decided these must be bandages, but it's more of a guess than anything.

He really doesn't like guessing.

Half the monitors in front of him are flickering through CCTV images, searching on an annoyingly sketchy set of parameters for a hint of Faceless. The other half are picking through images from the last month in search of known members of a Czech group hired to take out Wayne, and he's trying not to think very much about what a complete waste of time and energy that is. But Batman could hardly refuse to take an interest: he's forgotten more than once of late that his few allies are people who figure things out for a living, and that has to stop. He really couldn't hand them an easier hint than that.

So here he is, looking into threats against, well. Himself.

The only bright side to this is that he might finally get the GCPD out of his penthouse and back to doing something important.

"You're making the servers smoke today, Mr. Wayne," Lucius remarks, less a complaint than a mildly admiring observation. Bruce glances up, sees Lucius standing behind him, hands locked behind his back, gaze taking in the stretch of monitors. The flourescents make his hair glow. Behind him stands Alfred, bearing a tray and a determined expression. He's taken to insisting Bruce eat as soon as he escapes to this place, as though he thinks Batman will faint from low blood sugar while out beating up criminals if he doesn't provide sustenance the moment the suit comes out.

They've negotiated their way down to protein shakes, which is as much concession as Alfred will grant on this subject, so Bruce takes it without comment when it's set in front of him. It tastes like pureed spinach and chalk, but it's a huge improvement over trying to choke down filet mignon while wearing titanium plate armor - or refusing, which means being on the receiving end of Butler On Stun for the next few days every time he meets Alfred's eye by accident.

Lucius leans closer to the screens on the right. "Those are Czech assassins," he says, surprise slowing his drawl even farther. Somehow it makes perfect sense that Fox would be familiar with the faces of international hit men. "That's a higher level of trouble than we usually see around here. What are they doing in Gotham?"

Bruce tips the rest of the shake back, mostly because while he's drinking it he can't talk. It's gone too soon. He looks at the dregs sliding down the glass like wet mulch, and sucks in a breath.

"They were hired to kill someone," he says. "Gordon asked me to look into it."

Alfred gets it first.

Bruce knows this because his butler sets the tray down with rare clumsiness and starts to laugh, a loud, helpless cackle that bends him double. He falls into the chair next to Bruce and rests his head in his hands. Lucius' eyebrows scale his forehead, and then understanding dawns on his face, followed by a wide, delighted grin.

"Get it out of your systems, go on," Bruce grumbles. Alfred slides down until he's barely in the chair, pink-faced and struggling for breath. Lucius is a little more dignified, restricting himself to a low snicker, but the grin makes him look like a little kid.

"Merciful god, that's w_onderful_," Alfred gasps.

"Wonderful? How is it wonderful? It's a waste of resources."

"It is a little amusing," Lucius allows, sobering a bit.

Bruce is starting to feel like the only grown up in the room. Also like he might have a distinctly sulky expression on his face, which would explain why Alfred keeps falling apart whenever he looks in that direction. He folds his arms, kevlar creaking, and glowers at the cowl where it's sitting on the countertop. "The part where I'm hemmed in by Gotham City detectives when I should be out there taking down Rugetti's organization, or the part where I'm supposed to pretend I can't take care of a few assassins myself, and let the GCPD risk their lives protecting me?"

Lucius eyes him askance, fighting a smile. "Both, Mr. Wayne, both. In a certain light, anyway. Though I'll admit there are better ways you could be spending your time."

"You could just tell him," Alfred suggests weakly, wiping his eyes.

"Right," Bruce scoffs. "That's a great idea, Alfred. I'll think about that."

And there's that Butler On Stun look again. How Alfred can manage it while he's still getting his breath back is a mystery.

"How much longer are you going to do this alone?" Alfred says reasonably. The tone -polite, mild, maybe vaguely interested- has since childhood heralded Bruce losing some argument or other. He braces before turning in the chair to face the only person in the world who has known him his whole life. Alfred routinely shreds his motivations to quivering bits when he takes this tone.

"I have you and Lucius," Bruce points out, trying to match the tone and failing miserably; even _he_ can hear how far off he is. He bites the inside of his cheek and thinks there ought to be some perks to wearing kevlar weave and titanium plate and a bat cowl and beating up bad guys, and just _one of them_, by god, ought to be winning any damn argument you take on when you're in costume.

No such luck.

"Well spotted, master Wayne," Alfred says, in more or less the same voice he'd use to congratulate a toddler for figuring out how to flush a toilet. Maybe a little less genuine enthusiasm. Bruce is going to do his best not to wonder if Alfred's ever actually congratulated him for doing exactly that, because it isn't outside the realm of possibility, and he's having a hard enough time reminding himself he's an adult right now with Alfred looking at him looking over his glasses. "You do have us. We do not, however, patrol the streets of Gotham fighting crime, and I don't believe either one of us is planning to start in the near future, am I right, Lucius?"

"Oh, I believe I'll sit this one out, gentlemen," Lucius says, and moseys over to where the Tumbler is in a state of partial deconstruction, because Bruce was trying to figure out where a rattling noise was coming from. He picks up a spanner. Bruce watches enviously.

"The Gotham police, on the other hand, do," Alfred concludes. Bruce scowls and decides the monitors are much more interesting than he previously thought. As a delaying tactic, it's not very helpful. Nothing new has come up. "And if a few of them knew who was under the cowl, you might be able to take a night off now and then."

And do what?

He doesn't say it. He doesn't have to. Alfred's determined expression vanishes as his face closes down into pure disapproval. There's something worse under it, something that drags at his conscience: disappointment. Bruce keeps his gaze on the screens in front of him, anger boiling in his veins, something less useful sitting in the center of his chest. It's easier to just look at CCTV flickering past him in high speed and nurse the fury until it's informing every muscle and tendon in his body. He'll be able to use this: he can't do anything with the other.

"If I'd thought a year ago when I picked you up barefoot and filthy in Bhutan that you'd leave no room in your life for anything else, master Wayne, I'd have left you there. You've rid the city of the mob: that leaves a void that ordinary thugs won't dare to fill- but someone will, and the one thing they won't be is ordinary. Gotham needs Batman. And Batman..." Alfred stands, gathering the tray and plucking the empty glass from Bruce's hand: he bends close enough for the new lines drawing themselves onto his face to be visible. The look in his eyes is impatient, angry, sad. Bruce squashes the impulse to shrink down in his chair like he would have fifteen years ago, getting this look. "Batman needs _friends_," Alfred finishes.

"I don't have that luxury, Alfred." Bruce stands, getting out from under that glare, away from the sense that he's a child on the receiving end of a scolding. The anger and the misery brewing underneath it come with him as he snatches the cowl up and heads for the bike. That's hardly a surprise: they only leave him when he's flying, or fighting.

"It's not a luxury, sir, it's a matter of survival."

"Have I ever given you the impression I have a hard time _surviving_?"

His voice is rising in spite of the tight grip he's got on himself. Bruce slides the cowl on, feels his shoulders immediately unknot and square, his lungs open- and knows right then, in the back of his mind, exactly what Alfred's saying, because that isn't normal.

He locks the plates in place and pulls his gloves on. Normal is for other people. The whole fucking reason for Batman is so other people have a _chance_ at normal.

"No, master Wayne. Merely the impression you don't want to," Alfred says, and his voice is rougher, less polish, more pain. Lucius, crouched next to the tumbler and already grease-stained to the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt, looks so carefully noncommittal it's clear who he agrees with.

Bruce mounts the bike, kicks it into gear with a little too much force, and gets the hell out of there.


	9. Chapter 9

Punching people in the face is wonderful stress relief. Alfred should try it sometime.

Man With Gun 1 makes a noise of surprise and pain and falls backward, gun flying up to hit him in the face because it's held to his body by a strap - big gun. Semi-automatic. Not a gun he wants to see turned on the GCPD.

Bruce ducks under the entirely predictable blow Man With Gun 2 is swinging at his unprotected back, straightens and breaks the arm that's flying past him. Gun 2 screams, dropping his sawed-off. Bruce cuts through that noise by getting the man by the windpipe and ramming him into the nearest wall. It's dark, but Gun 2's widening eyes are visible in the gloom.

The GCPD is filling the floor below with bellows for compliance and the occasional expletive, but nobody's fired a weapon yet.

"Hi," he husks, which is evidently not what Gun 2 was expecting judging by the audible _click!_ as the man shuts his mouth and stares. Batman generally communicates with his type via roar or growl, or the ever-popular kick in the face. Bruce squelches a momentary desire to clap the man on a shoulder just to see what his expression will be. Instead he squeezes a little harder, shoves him into the wall again, and then lifts him a few inches off the floor by the shelf of his jaw. "You're going to tell me where your boss is."

"Urghnghrnnnn! Ffrrrrrrchhh yurrrgh!"

Too tight a choke hold, apparently, though he's fairly sure he got the gist of that declaration anyway.

He lets Gun 2 drop, waits long enough for the man to get his balance back and to start to think about making a run for it, then shoves him out the window he broke on his way in fifteen minutes ago. The scream Gun 2 utters is much higher this time, rabbitlike and dopplered as he flips backward over the sill into the night. The line Bruce loops around the man's disappearing right foot goes taut in exactly two seconds, which ought to be enough time for anyone to think about what faceplanting into concrete from eleven stories up would do to their day.

When he reels Gun 2 back up the man is gibbering.

"Run that by me again," Bruce says pleasantly, using the rasp lightly enough that the tone comes through.

"I dunno who, he just texts me, man, I just go where I'm told! Ah _fuck_, that hurts…"

"Name."

"Don't got one! Goddammit I didn't ask for references! He pays, I do!"

"You're going to have to do better than that." He lets the line out a little, hears a howl just this side of sane: he picked someone with a heights phobia, maybe. Lucky. He stomps on a niggling worry about how far he's willing to take this, glances back to make sure that Gun 1 is still unconscious and that the GCPD haven't made their way upstairs to the attic quite yet. This would be an awkward time to get shot.

"_Hush! Hush!_" Gun 2 wails, which stops Bruce in his tracks until he realizes that's the name he was asking for. Jesus, why do the bad guys all have to have weird names now? What's wrong with Bob, or Carl?

This is probably a stupid question, considering what he goes by of an evening.

He pulls the man up, holds him against the sill by one leg. The noise downstairs is rising and receding in waves, so someone's probably found the lab set up in the apartment on the northern wall.

"Where can I find him?"

The leg in his grip thrashes. He loosens his fingers just enough, hears another muffled howl. "_God_," Gun 2 gasps. "Please not like this, please. Bring me back in and shoot me, man- please. Not this."

Definitely a phobia. Bruce stuffs down a welter of shame, reminds himself this guy was hidden up here waiting to blow holes in every police officer that was unlucky enough to be first through. He taps a finger impatiently on a tibia.

"Cicero and Fifth," Gun 2 says wearily. There's a tremor running through him in waves, making it harder to keep a grip on his shin. "Sometimes he's there.

He must weigh 180: pulling him back inside is not easily done. Bruce sets the man on the floor, where he pants like a marathon runner in the home stretch and cradles his broken arm, looking both menacing and pitiful at the same time. The gun is beside him; he doesn't even glance at it.

"You're gonna kill me?"

Bruce picks the shotgun up and jacks three rounds out, then empties the magazine. "Not today."

Having the criminal underworld convinced the Bat's a cop killer has had unexpected perks, namely a whole new level of fear, but it still make his gorge rise every goddamned time he gets this question. He has just barely enough time to knock the man out and then GCPD is banging the door in, and he's crouched in the roof beams fifteen feet up.

"Clear!" a uniform barks, swinging his sidearm is every direction, stiff-armed and practically bouncing with excitement. First raid, maybe. He has the look of someone who has seen this done on TV a hundred times, and is providing himself a mental soundtrack to go with the moment.

He's also glossing right over the fact that there are two men on the floor in various states of got-the-crap-beaten-out-of-them, a cache of hand grenades, and a lot of big guns.

The moment that fact reaches him is clear: his gun sags and his jaw drops. "Uh… shit. Shit. Sir! Got some bad guys up here!"

"That your version of a technical term, Officer?"

Stephens looks a good ten years younger in swat gear, and he carries his rifle like he knows what to do with it. The kid shoots him a come-save-me look from under his helmet and points. "They're, uh…"

"Yeah, I see that." Stephens comes closer, sidling on the uneven floor, rifle up and ready. He nudges the M-16 carefully away, and the rookie picks it up. Nudges the sawed-off away. Eyes the small case of grenades, and winces.

"Rook, I want you to hang that semi-automatic weapon over your shoulder, then come pick up this case and take it down to Stiegers. Tell her the building's clear, we'll need a couple stretchers in the attic, but no rush: the lab comes first. Can you do that?"

"Yes sir!" The kid hangs the gun on himself awkwardly. It's only when he gets closer that he realizes the case he's going to be carrying holds hand grenades. Even in the gloom of the attic it's possible to see the blood fall out of his face.

"Don't drop that," Stephens says dryly.

"No sir," the kid says, in a much smaller voice. He tip-toes out. Stephens picks up the sawed-off, checks to see it's empty, and looks up at almost the right spot.

"We tracked the last batch of stolen oxy to this address and two others in the Narrows," he says, low and conversational. "There's a new task force forming to handle the drug labs. The one that was set up to bring Dent's murderer to justice has been put on standby while we deal with it. Mayor's not too thrilled about that, what I hear. Says GCPD's priorities aren't appropriate."

Bruce shifts, wondering if he's actually visible this far back in the shadows of the roof structures, or if Stephens just guesses well. The detective nudges Man With Gun 1 idly with a booted foot. "Saved us a firefight, I see. You're going to ruin your bad rep if you keep this up."

"Priorities," Bruce rasps, and Stephens huffs a quiet reply that doesn't sound like disagreement.

Bruce debates: he doesn't know Stephens well, has only read his file, never worked with him. His superiors marked him as a solid officer long before the GCPD was cleaned up, in the way that used to happen back when most of the cops in power were dirty: his evaluations were consistently poor, full of remarks about not being a team player. Warnings for a hot temper. His career has been a long, slow arc: he'll probably retire a detective, and he shows no inclination to be anything else.

Gordon trusts him.

"I have a name," Bruce says, wondering if he's going to regret it, if he's bringing Gordon's people in too soon, if he's risking what little he's gained. He _hates_ this. Working alone was so much easier. These tiny acts of faith, however measured, make something in his stomach twist. "Hush."

Stephens frowns up into the rafters, one eyebrow rising. "That's a name?"

"Apparently."

"Guess there's a theme going around."

Hearing his own earlier thought echoed back at him is both amusing and unsettling. Bruce stands, balancing on the thickest of the beams and hoping it can take his weight across its length, because crashing to the floor in front of Stephens probably wouldn't inspire much confidence. "He may be the one organizing the drug ring," he tosses over his shoulder, heading for a skylight. "I'll leave word when I have more. The one on your right may know more than I've gotten."

Stephens spares a glance at the figure huddled at his feet and smiles a grim smile. "I'll have a chat with him when he wakes up, then."

The hot temper comments on his evaluations may have some truth to them. Invisible in the dark, Bruce allows himself a small, matching smile before pulling himself out through the skylight, into a light snowfall.


	10. Chapter 10

Cicero and Fifth is a meat processing plant.

That feels like it ought to be a joke, but he can already tell it's not by the impeccable darkness in the fourth-floor windows, which is too seamless to be caused by anything but blackout shades. He aims an infrared long range scanner at one of those blank squares, reads only the ambient heat of a building in use, and ends an argument about the relative merit of chili dogs happening in the alley under him by launching himself between buildings 60 feet above, cape flapping.

There's a curse from below, then the sound of soles slapping pavement.

The security on these windows makes the MCU look severely underfunded- which, if he needed evidence he's in the right place, would be more than enough justification for breaking in. It's inconvenient. He's forced to pry the magnetic contacts in the window frame delicately out of the wood while hanging by rappelling line, snow tapping against his cowl, the wind taking his cape all over the place. When he pulls himself over the sill and into warmer air, it's pitch black. He crouches instinctively against the wall, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

There are people moving around in the rooms above and below: he can hear murmured conversations, a rhythmic mechanical sound, faint music. After a few long minutes of nothing happening, he risks a light, and for a moment is so completely frozen in place if someone walked in with a gun right this second, he'd be a dead man.

Bodies. Two. Several hours old at least, since they've cooled to ambient.

From where he crouches across the room, with nothing but the red beam of the burglar's light to draw them out of the darkness, they look both surprised by their deaths and oddly- arranged, like whoever killed them moved them closer, maybe nudged an arm or a leg into a little more graceful an arc, before leaving them here to rot.

He stands, blows out a breath, approaches. The woman's eyes are open and glazed. Her blouse and skirt could be gray or brown: it's impossible to tell in the low frequency glare of his handlight. The fur coat framing her shoulders bristles sepulchrally. The man is curved vaguely toward her like his last act might have been shielding her, or trying to. The white of his shirt under a dark jacket glares around a ragged red stain, the bullet hole burned into cloth just above his heart, one button shattered. His eyes are shut. Her clutch purse lies open by her knee. Her left hand is closed over something white and glossy, and he is moving before he catches up with his own intention, throat locked shut, guts rolling. He kneels again next to her, next to her pale upswept hair gleaming in the red light, her empty, motionless eyes, her bullet-shattered collarbone and streaked neck.

The heavy pearl string in her bloodless fist.

It's not, of course. Close up there are obvious differences, and that would be impossible in any case, and. It's not.

He's breathing too fast, and it's making him dizzy. He stands, fights through a wave of lightheaded nausea, and swings the beam around the room, which is empty except for a bare desk, a glass-front cabinet under it that looks like a wine chiller. When opened, it holds a single vial half-full of dark liquid, and he places it in a steel container on the belt without thinking about it. He can't stand to be in this room another second. Bodies: evidence. Enough to warrant a full search of the building. GCPD can take it from here.

He pauses with one foot on the window frame, a year of experience dealing with crime scenes screeching in his head, seven years' study of the academic and the painfully practical kind adding a hellish chorus. This is what he does, and he's not doing much of a job of it at the moment.

It takes effort to cross back, to bend over their still forms and gather what he needs.

Her purse carries no ID; his pockets are as empty. But their eyes, when he finally thinks to switch to normal spectrum light, are a disturbing shade of pale yellow, and their skin is brittle and papery. Their fingers have tiny petechiae spotting the tips. He thinks of the vial in his belt and gently extracts it, seals it in a layer of latex, and puts it back.

He can go now.

He _should_ go now: his hands have acquired a fine tremor, and the rage weltering up out of his pores needs a target, a direction, anything. Under it is something he refuses to feel, something that makes his pulse batter at the cowl where it presses into his neck, makes his skin go cold and clammy under the armor. For a second he is stuck in place, fighting the urge to slide that string of pearls gently from her dead grip and bring them, because it's too obvious, too much, to clear a view of the raw skin under the armor, sitting out there where anyone can see it. But rigor has set in, and it will be very clear she was holding something, and Batman doesn't get in the way of investigations.

And honestly, he doesn't think he can do it.

The snow has stopped in the time he's been inside, and the night air is clear and chilled. He calls Gordon, replies to a wary greeting with nothing but the address, and settles on the rooftop opposite to watch.

Even with his eyes shut, he can see the pearls under her fingers.

"Something coming in on the scanner, sir," Alfred says in his ear, distant and tiny as he is only when he's a cross the city and coming in on scrambled wireless. "Fifth and Cicero. Double homicide."

"I know."

The rasped reply is apparently enough, because Alfred drops it.

Half an hour later he is still there, hunched against the wind, the smoke from the exhaust fan he's crouched beside making his nose itch and his stomach growl. This suit is probably going to smell like Vietnamese food. He's not sure if that's an improvement over blood, sweat, and gunpowder or not, but he has no doubt Alfred will give him an opinion on the matter.

GCPD has emptied 4851 Cicero and Fifth onto the streets and taken at least fifteen people in for questioning. Somehow there's nothing satisfying about it: he's already sure nobody in the building knows anything. Two stretchers are coming out now, black body bags reflecting hazy streetlight, a crowd of detectives in their wake. There's a hour left of true dark. He battles down a shiver, wondering if he has time to make it to the Narrows

A scrape announces the arrival of someone, probably on a perimeter check. He ducks into the shadow cast by the custodial shed and readies a rappelling line that will take him to the roof of the church next door, then hears a familiar voice on the stairs and leans against the shed wall, sighing quietly.

"Knowing our luck he's two rooftops away with a pair of sniper binocs and a space heater," Montoya gripes, pushing the roof door wide and preceding her partner out. She's got a police issue coat on and a vest under that, so she's got a perfect reason to be griping.

Bullock, in the same trench coat he had on the last time Batman saw him, doesn't look much happier, but he does look warmer. "Nah," Bullock hums. "This one was too weird. He's here."

"Hope so," Montoya grumbles, rubbing her hands, edging out into the open with a wary look around. "I got Billy's birthday party tomorrow, and Kate still wants me to make goddamn cupcakes for ten kids."

"Doesn't seem so hard."

"Says the guy who thinks food comes in a can. One day, Bullock, I'm gonna drag you to a cooking class and you're gonna be blown away by all the things you can eat that didn't start life out in a factory."

"Whatever you say, Rachel Ray." Bullock shines a flashlight over the roof, catching a thousand flakes of snow in the beam.

Montoya utters a weary giggle, not a noise one would ever expect to come out of her. "The idea of you watching Food Network makes my brain hurt," she says, and it's hard not to agree with that. Bullock gives the impression of a man still coasting on the adolescent faith that his body will never need more maintenance that an occasional 85% lean steak and some reduced sodium A1 sauce. Montoya waits until her partner is halfway across the roof, then tosses something onto the top of the air vent with deceptive carelessness. "Anyway," she says. "If we could maybe get out of here before the witching hour, that would be nice. I want to get up before ten am on my day off. And I still need to pick up Billy's present."

"Right," Bullock murmurs, and shuts the light off.

Only streetlight illuminates the rooftop now, the perfect time for Batman to slide out of shadow. He straightens, pulls in a soft breath- but his feet don't want to move, so he hovers like an idiot, trying to make his weary muscles follow orders. He doesn't even know what to say anyway: he's got the evidence he needs, his equipment is better, so what exactly is he here to tell them?

Montoya and Bullock are tossing insults at each other now, little barbs that have just enough truth wrapped in just enough exaggeration to have them doing a wary half-dance on the rooftop, almost circling, teeth bared in grins just barely on the right side of friendly. Judging by the comments they've known each other a while, though he's been around enough cops by now to know that's not necessary for a strong partnership.

They do have that.

They remind him more than ever of puppies. He realizes the last time he can remember playing this grown-up version of Two For Flinching with someone it was Henri, which probably qualifies him for serious psychotherapy (if dressing up like a giant bat to fight crime didn't cover that pretty thoroughly, that is), and god_dammit_, Alfred's point is perfectly clear now.

"Arright, let's go, he's not coming," he hears, and he holds his breath like a kid hiding from a threatened bed time until their snow-muffled steps fade and the roof door shuts with a protesting squeak. When he's certain that nobody will be coming back, he sidles carefully through their footsteps to the air vent to see what Montoya left.

It's a packet of wet wipes. Not having the slightest idea how to take that, he drops it in the snow and heads for home.


	11. Chapter 11

The vial, it turns out, holds a neurotoxin.

Lucius actually blanched (as much as he could, which meant he turned a horrible shade of gray) and sat down a little too abruptly when he read the analysis printout Bruce dropped off, which made for an awkward few moments during the monthly board meeting. Wayne is going to have to buy something truly ridiculous, like a fighter jet, to give a plausible explanation for that.

He'll leave that to Alfred. As long as it doesn't involve more obscure sports.

The murdered couple aren't actually a couple: she is a neuroscientist and he is a chemical engineer, and they worked for Klein in different departments, which in a company that size means they might never have met until they were first poisoned and then shot together. Her name was Martha Kushner. His was Thomas Merkin.

He'd prefer to believe this a coincidence, but even if he was stupid enough for that, every nerve in his body is screaming otherwise.

Analysis indicates the neurotoxin is a slow paralytic that degrades pigmented tissue and spinal nerve function: they would have been ill and in pain for days, and eventually drowned as their breathing reflexes stopped. That would have killed them before the other host of nasty side effects, if not for the gunshot wounds which were obviously acquired before death. Analysis also indicates that her hair was recently dyed from reddish brown to that striking platinum blond, and that his skin was lightened.

Someone went to a lot of trouble to assure they'd look like Thomas and Martha Wayne.

He hasn't slept in two days, caught between a fury won't let his nerves settle enough for rest and the dreams that come the moment he closes his eyes.

Alfred has stopped mentioning it, which usually means he's about to do something drastic like drug Bruce's food, except Alfred has also stopped letting fly with dry little sarcasms meant to remind Bruce that he does have limits, and no longer shoots Butler On Stun when he thinks his charge is being an idiot. Instead there is a constant presence in the warehouse where the servers live, Alfred bent toward the wall of monitors reading data and tapping at keys at all hours, as driven as the man he watches over. Bruce has opened his mouth more than once to mention that Alfred is pushing himself too hard, too long, but there's too much hypocrisy in it even for him.

Alfred is out on the balcony now, a quiet figure in dark pants and sweater, shoulders hunched against the cold. Bruce wipes the last of the black paint from his eyes and stretches, popping things from his right hip all the way to his ear. There's a bruise the size of a grapefruit on his thigh. Another is blooming just below his collarbone. The edges of the titanium plates have etched themselves into his skin, dividing his body into sections, putting a line of unmarked flesh straight down his middle, in stark contrast to the rest of him.

Rugetti's not an idiot: some of his grunts have martial arts training. They're learning, which means Batman will have to find something new to add to the arsenal to keep ahead. He was the match of everyone he fought, but taking down ten armed men who know jujitsu isn't quite the same as taking down ten armed men who just know how to aim a gun and lurk. Weariness rides his every movement, narrows his peripheral vision, puts doubt in his plans. He needs a shower. He needs a drink. He might need a few, actually.

He has two detectives sitting in his living room.

Maybe he can drink in the shower? Alfred already thinks he's crazy.

There's a faint clinking sound, and a glass appears in his peripheral vision, warm amber liquid sloshing gently against the sides. Bruce takes it without looking, not willing to see that look of quiet defeat again. "Thanks," he mumbles.

"You have a ten o'clock meeting with the Gotham City Trust, sir."

Five hours from now. Christ. Now _his_ shoulders are starting to hunch.

"Maybe I should arrive in uniform," he says, sucking down half the glass in a go and shutting his eyes at the wonderful burn that rolls down his throat and explodes in his stomach. "I'd probably get more traction with the Transportation bunch that way."

"If by traction you mean the backdraft as they fled the room, sir, then yes."

He swallows the last of the whiskey, which is, it turns out, just enough to allow him to meet Alfred's eyes. He's immediately sorry, because it's also just enough whiskey to blur the mental line he drew the night he came home gutshot, his knee too swollen to bend, the suit torn and burned and actually _shredded_ in some places, the city roiling in his wake like a storm-driven sea. Alfred had peeled the kevlar off with steady hands while Bruce had put all his effort into not screaming; had tended his battered body with silent aplomb; and then, when the drugs were beginning to soften the edges of the agony and it was clear he wouldn't bleed to death, had sat in the chair where he spends most of his nights now and wept in perfect silence, his fingers pressed tight together over his face. The morphine haze had not hidden that, merely given it a terrible dreamlike echo to the only other night Alfred had shed tears in his sight.

That was a price he'd never factored into his plans, and it's too high, too much, the one limit he has been forced to acknowledge.

_If a thing cannot be changed and has no consequence beyond your pain, Bruce, you must leave it aside. Pain is of no significance beyond the ability it has to alter your choices. Remove that, and it vanishes._

One of the few of Henri's lessons he never managed to grasp.

He wishes now he'd tried harder. Alfred's eyes are calm and amused, and deep with sleeplessness. He retrieves the glass, replacing it with a full one, and leaves the room, flipping the bedsheets down in a silent command to sleep. Bruce listens to his low voice in the living room a moment later, asking Tweedle's partner if he wants coffee or tea.

Drinking in the shower turns out to be a fairly fruitless exercise, and Laphroig diluted with warm water is far less satisfying.


	12. Chapter 12

Bullock's daywear is unexpectedly dull without the trench: he looks, leading the way down the hall to the MCU's main lab, more like a minor league quarterback turned seedy soccer dad than a mob boss. He's also limping a little, the result of a small squabble during a raid in the Narrows that put two officers in the hospital and knocked Bullock down a flight of stairs. He's breathing heavily as he walks, not carrying his weight well- clearly not doing the physical therapy his doctor recommended for that knee. Or likely any of the other things his doctor recommends.

Bruce wonders if the man even knows how to cook something that doesn't come out of a can, realizes a second later that this is a Montoya thought, and has to pretend to sneeze before the reporter at his side can write his uncomfortably loud snort of self-disgust into her story.

"Almost there," Bullock pants.

"Maybe I could fund some better lighting for you guys," Wayne says doubtfully, casting a glance up at the dim fluorescent bulbs that (barely) light the hall. He perks up, putting almost as much effort into that as Bullock is probably putting into walking right now. Perking is hard on two hours of sleep. "You know, I think I have some old Tiffany chandeliers in storage I could send over."

Bullock pauses in the act of walking, his shoulders hunched. He looks like he stepped on a tack, or maybe just remembered he left the burner on at home this morning. The struggle to find something not involving swear words to say in reply is written all over his bunched back muscles. The reporter watches him with bright-eyed interest.

Bruce keeps his gaze on the ceiling and the detective in his peripheral, ready to duck sideways and call it a stumble. Baiting Bullock is marginally entertaining, as things go, but he doesn't want the man up on assault charges for punching Gotham's prince in the eye.

"That's real generous of you, Mr. Wayne," Bullock finally rumbles, achieving an combination of dry sarcasm and grumpy disgust that would make Alfred proud. He yanks a card from a pocket to swipe it in front of the door they've arrived at, which opens with a sharp_ click!_. A low mutter of machinery greets them, wafting out of the open door like a smell. The lighting in here is much worse. Bruce catches himself seriously thinking about sending decent track lights over, maybe routing them through a secondary corporation, and almost snorts again.

The new equipment is painfully obvious in this room, far shinier and sleeker; Ferraris dropped in the middle of a lumberyard. He manages to avoid glancing down at his suit and making the obvious comparison, but his shoulders draw up anyway.

The lab manager grips his hand in both of hers and squeezes a bit too hard. The excitement in her eyes is all for her new toys and not for him, and it settles his nerves a little: she makes a great photo op, the crime reporter gets her touching human moment, and the lab manager, whose name is Becky, trips over a cable and almost faceplants in her eagerness to get back to her new HPLC. She's going to pet something and purr _my precious_any second now. Bruce hopes she remembers to go home sometime this week.

"Mr. Wayne," Gordon says from behind him, and Bruce, sucking in air to launch into some stupid suggestion about interior decorating, actually feels the words fall right out of his mouth as he turns to meet Gordon's handshake.

Gordon's fingers are freezing. The shadows under his eyes have pitched tents and invited the neighbors over for a cookout. He looks like a man in the middle of a serious binge or a nervous breakdown; yet his suit is freshly ironed, his hair is combed, and his eyes are clear and lucid. The combination is confusing and familiar, an echo of his own tailored clothes and sleepless nights.

Bruce thinks of DIVORCE NOTICE on a kitchen table, the empty whiskey glass next to Gordon's hand.

"Commissioner, you look like you could use a meal," he hears himself say. Gordon blinks. Bruce blinks too, because this just keeps fucking happening, like Gordon is his own personal kryptonite of stupidity.

"I could," Gordon says, sounding just as surprised as Bruce feels.

"This is a little above my pay grade," Gordon says twenty minutes later as Bruce double parks outside of La Lune. "Mr. Wayne, you can't park there."

"Does the police commissioner write parking tickets?" Bruce asks, genuinely curious.

Gordon's eyes take on a grim glint. "When the police commissioner has to, yes."

Bruce grins toothily. Since he's backing up he can actually see the flash of his own teeth in the rearview mirror, and it's hard to understand how his dentist achieved this particular shade of ferocious white, but jesus. No wonder people look alarmed when he grins. He always thought it was Wayne's nails-on-chalkboard personality, but it might be the fusion reaction happening on his enamel.

There's a muffled crunch. Gordon stiffens in the passenger seat like someone just insulted his mama.

_You did not just do that_, he thinks. But he hangs his head, because oh yes, he definitely did just back into someone else's car while trying to drag Gotham's commissioner of police to lunch.

"Wow," Gordon murmurs.

There's really just nothing to say. Even Wayne is caught without a single cliché.

Bruce heaves a small sigh and unbuckles, Wayne's expression of mildly irritated confusion hovering over his facial muscles like the world's least comfortable mud mask, yanking his mouth in all the wrong directions. "No big deal," he suaves, waving a hand. "I do this all the time."

It's a little harder to hold that line when he sees the back of his Lamborghini, which he just bought last week. Well, had Alfred buy. He did pick the color, though. His detailer is going to cry. He scratches his head as Gordon fights his way out of the passenger seat and strides back to take in the damage.

"That's a good vehicle," the police commissioner observes mildly.

He's clearly not talking about the Lamborghini, which actually rolled more than a foot _under_ the front bumper of the desert-camo-painted Hummer behind it before the tail wedged under the grill. The goddamned Hummer does indeed look just fine. There's probably some red paint on the bottom of the chrome.

His Lamborghini, on the other hand, looks like a flashy tropical bird halfway down the gullet of a sandworm.

"I guess size does matter sometimes," Wayne says sadly.

There's a weird, wheezy sort of gulping noise: he looks up in time to see Gordon curl a hand as if to catch a cough, eyes shut, shoulders curving inward with the effort to swallow his amusement. A split second later the commissioner is straight and calm and again, clearing his throat quietly. Bruce pretends to have looked at the door beyond him. "Come on, Commissioner, no reason this should get in the way of lobster risotto."

"_Mr. Wayne_, you are not leaving the scene until you've talked to the owner of this truck and you exchange insurance information."

"Like I couldn't pay for the whole thing," Wayne scoffs, sidling around to get to La Lune's door. "And it's an SUV, by the way, not a truck."

Can asshole be used as a verb? He thinks he might be making a strong case for that.

Gordon has a surprising grip, for such a tired-looking man. Bruce can't entirely squash the reflexive muscle-twitch that comes with being touched, and the hand on his arm grows gentler, though it doesn't go away. For a second he can't look at the man; all the wrong nerve endings are twanging. "The owner's probably inside," he says lightly. And doesn't move, caught in the tractor beam that is Gordon's reproachful gaze.

"Then you will wait here while I ask inside," Gordon informs him. The last time he heard that steely certainty Gordon was negotiating a hostage situation in a bank.

There's a knock on the big window they're standing in front of: they both twitch this time. On the other side of the glass a pruned, vaguely mushroom-colored face looks out at them, topped by an incredible peppershot beehive that can't possibly be real. Judging by the stiff scowl she's a) a fan of botox and b) the owner, difficult as that is to picture, of the Hummer currently digesting his Lamborghini.

"Oh _god_," Bruce breathes, going limp in shock as he realizes why that glare is giving him the urge to duck under a table.

Gordon releases his arm, now that someone more threatening has come along to keep him in line. "Acquaintance?"

"Neighbor." Insomuch as it's possible to have a neighbor when your yard is over twenty acres across, that is.

Alfred had gone through a period, after the funeral, where he'd dragged eight-year-old Bruce along for a "visit" to everyone within a ten-mile radius of the Manor -less an act of sociability than an escape from the suffocating silence of the house, Bruce had always thought.

Wayne should be swooping in right about now to save the day with too much enthusiasm and too little sincerity, but for a few horrible seconds every cell in his body is locked in the shock-muffled, static misery of memory, and he can barely breathe. Gordon's sidelong glance is sharp enough, blessedly, to knock the sense back into him.

Mrs. Grumm looks like a lawn gnome action figure version of the terrifying old lady he remembers from twenty years ago. She exits La Lune in a rapid shuffle, beehive swaying. Her eggshell silk shawl is wrapped tightly over her bony shoulders and across her body, neck and head floating over it and jutting belligerently out ahead of her scuffing feet. The effect is cocoon-like, making her seem like some horrifying new species of butterfly chewing its way out of an Armani chrysalis.

"WAYNE," she bellows. Heads turn all the way down Broadway.

"Call for backup," Bruce says.

"What, Mr. Wayne?" Gordon might be laughing. He can't look away from Mrs. Grumm long enough to be sure.

"WAYNE," Mrs. Grumm bawls once more. "I KNEW THAT HAD TO BE YOU, YOU JACKASS."

"I'm serious. Can we get a SWAT team here? You have no idea what she can do with an umbrella."

Gordon is definitely laughing now.

Somewhere in the middle of exhaustion, embarrassment, a genuine if mostly nostalgic dread of the old lady bearing down on them, and the rage that never quite leaves his veins, Bruce feels a weird sort of pride that he's managed to give Gordon five minutes where he's not thinking about his job or his divorce.

The umbrella is in fact out now, the old lady wielding it like a homicidal conductor, describing every forward step with a whistling arc. She's cleared a section of sidewalk. She also looks like she might fall over any minute. She soft-shoes her way to an unsteady halt in front of them and blares "_BRUCE ANTHONY WAYNE_" at decibels more appropriate to fire engine sirens or speed metal concerts. He could swear his hair moves.

He hears Gordon murmur "Anthony" in tones of quiet interest, and okay. That's entirely enough self-sacrifice to lay at the altar of distracting Jim Gordon from himself.

"Mrs. Grunge!" Wayne exclaims, kicking in a bit late, making up for that by flinging arms wide like she's coming in for an airborne hug. It stops her in her tracks, thank christ. She screws up her face as much as she can with half her muscles botoxed into permanent stillness and glowers, umbrella pointed at him like the spindly polyester finger of god.

"GRUMM," she yells.

They're gathered a crowd. He can distinctly hear the digital whine of a camera. This scene won't do Gotham's new police commissioner any favors, and it's not going to help his old neighbor's blood pressure much, either. He suffers a brief but vivid flashback to watching tabloid photographers sneak up her lawn while he hid behind a monstrous ficus tree in her front window, Alfred sitting in her Italianate kitchen chatting until the reflection of a flash made him jump. She'd chased three amateur paparazzi all the way down her driveway with nothing but a swinging handbag and a cheese grater.

What she'll do now isn't something he wants to find out. She's already glaring into the small crowd, holding her umbrella _en garde_. He reaches out and pats one arm carefully.

"Let's hash this out over lunch, what do you say? I'm buying, of course."

"I DON'T NEED YOUR MO- oh damn it, I've done it again."

The shift to a nearly normal volume is startling. Mrs. Grumm claws a tiny flesh-colored plastic nub out of one ear and taps the side, replaces it, pulls one out of her other ear and repeats the process. Bruce allows himself a small sigh.

"Come inside, Mrs. Grumm," he says, taking her arm. "We'll talk it over with some wine. I'm starving. Commissioner Gordon and I were just about to try the risotto. Have you eaten?"

"What do you think I was doing in there, young man, shopping for my next husband? My risotto's probably all over the damned floor, thanks to you." She's fluffing her shawl, eyeing the gathering throng like a bull elephant deciding whether or not to charge. The next camera whine actually lifts her lip. Bruce figures he's got about ten seconds before the umbrella comes back up and Gordon has to arrest her for assault.

"Have a glass of wine with me and at least two tabloids will be running stories tomorrow declaring that I'm your next groom," Wayne promises glibly, and his neighbor throws him an outraged look and then cackles like the witch in the Wizard of Oz.

"Actually, Mr. Wayne, Mrs.-um- Grumm," Gordon pauses to offer Mrs. Grumm a short nod that comes close to a bow, and has more simple charm than Wayne's entire arsenal. Bruce can actually feel the old lady relaxing under his gentle grip. "I think I'd better be going. You two can sort this out without me."

Goddammit. "Oh _no, _Commissioner-"

"Ridiculous. You look peaked, young man." Mrs. Grumm is slightly more terrifying when she squints, but Gordon stands his ground, only a shifting muscle in his jaw suggesting he'd like to lean back. "I think you'd better come in and have some decent food. Don't let this fool scare you off from a meal. He's harmless. Wouldn't hurt a fly. I thought you were going to be a fireman," she declares to Bruce, almost in her pre-fixed-hearing-aid volume. "What happened?"

That one's definitely going to make it onto page six.

"I changed my mind. Also, I was ten." And angry at the world and determined to save it, and barely able to think about guns without having screaming nightmares, so policeman, bounty hunter, and Navy SEAL, all appealing notions for a boy, were not likely. A fire hose and a pick axe were about his speed at that age.

Not once had _grapple gun toting ninja dressed as flying rodent_ crossed his mind, he's fairly sure.

Bruce is beginning to think this lunch might be a bad idea

But Mrs. Grumm has already gotten Gordon's arm in her free claw, and now they look like an exceptionally strange threesome about to happen on the sidewalk outside La Lune. There's another cluster of camera chirps as they walk in, and then a cluster of serving staff shifting chairs, fussing over cutlery, and offering free glasses of wine as though the scene outside were somehow their fault. Mrs. Grumm accepts this as due homage and imperiously orders a truffle. Bruce could use a tall glass of whiskey, but wine will do, if only someone will just bring him a bottle or three. Gordon, being technically on duty until one am or whenever his people manage to hound him out of his office and into a bed, asks for water and looks wearily puzzled when he gets Perrier. Outside two waiters shove his Lamborghini out from under Mrs. Grumm's Hummer with a noise that makes all three of them grimace.

"I'll pay for any damage, of course," Bruce offers, and Mrs. Grumm makes that _hah!_ sound particular to grumpy little old ladies harboring contrary opinions.

"Since your car appears to be the only one that sustained any, I suspect you will. Why don't you drive something sensible?"

"Like a tank, you mean? How do you even parallel park that thing?"

That was the wrong thing to say, judging by the angry-bulldog jut of her lower jaw. He sets his teeth into his tongue and stares back with blithe confidence while Gordon's gaze flicks between them like they are the dramatic equivalent of a tennis match. The wine will be very welcome: his pulse is a little fast.

Mobsters and gang wars are fine, but apparently little old ladies are too much. This is a whole new level of pathetic. Therapy's looking like a better option all the time.

"More easily than you do that shiny car of yours, apparently," Mrs. Grumm says, in exactly the tone that used to freeze him in place as a kid, and Gordon snorts genteely into his mineral water.

"Your point," Bruce concedes, smiling widely. "What kind of mileage does it get?"

"Depends on whether I'm driving on the highway or over an overpriced midlife crisis," the old lady shoots back, not missing a beat or batting an eyelash.

"Mid-li - I'm _thirty one_! And that car is a classic." Well, not really. Not even close. But he can probably get away with that tiny white lie with an eighty year-old la-

"Please," Mrs Grumm snorts. "It hasn't been around as long as my pool boy- and neither have you, for that matter. Don't give me lip, Bruce Wayne. Get yourself a 1960 Corvette and we can talk."

Christ. Maybe _she_ can be Batman tonight. He finds himself wondering what she'd do with the tumbler.

Mrs. Grumm stuffs a fingernail-sized crumb into her mouth and stands before either he or Gordon can do the polite thing and help, levering herself up on the umbrella. The beehive moves in an entirely different direction from her body, like it wants to leap off her head and bolt for the nearest salon. "No, no, don't get up. I'll leave you boys to it. Stop by and help me fix my garden gate tomorrow if you want to make up for the paint you put on my grill today, young rascal."

Her plate is full of shredded truffle and their risotto is arriving, and this day is completely shot to hell anyway, so Bruce waves his empty glass for a refill and sighs.

"She's quite a lady," Gordon murmurs admiringly while Mrs. Grumm is sailing out the door on a sea of adoring serving staff. "That alone was worth the trip."

"Wait till you try the risotto," Bruce grumbles, and Gordon huffs a short laugh.

"So, a fireman," Gordon says. He's so perfectly polite about it you might almost think he didn't find this whole afternoon funny.

"_Ten_," Bruce shoots back. Wayne almost tosses something clever out there about uniforms and hero complexes, but thankfully he catches that little nugget of stupid before it sails past his teeth. "I also wanted to be a trapeze artist that year, I believe," he says instead, and nearly swallows his tongue.

Dear christing _fuck_, how was that better? At this rate he might as well carve a bat symbol on his forehead and have done with it.

He sucks down a mouthful of wine, both to settle his stupid nerves and shut himself the hell up, and finds something to look at besides Gordon's calm, tired face and the estimation in those grey eyes. Right now it's no more consideration than any other idiot ruining the Commissioner's lunch would likely get, but his subconscious seems determined to leave a trail of breadcrumbs right back to the cowl.

His skin goes cold as it becomes clear, suddenly, that he's been dancing around doing exactly that for the last hour.

Possibly a lot longer than that.

Damn, damn, _damn_ Alfred for putting this thought in his head.


	13. Chapter 13

The night yields no leads, just an ugly shooting where a girl flying high on Freeze bleeds out from a neck wound while he tries futilely to pinch her carotid shut with slick gloves. She sings _rockabye baby_ in ragged, toneless snatches as she dies, her eyes fixed on something behind the lowering sky. The picture in the locket around her neck is of a child no more than three, rendered androgynous by youth. Her license claims she is twenty two.

He hangs her killer by the wrists from a lamppost and leaves him to be discovered by the GCPD, perhaps before he's permanently lost the use of his hands, perhaps not.

##

Alfred's wordless offer of a newspaper with his morning coffee is never, ever a good sign.

Bruce takes a scalding sip while shaking the Gotham Post open, which is how he gets hot coffee up his nose. He's had taserings that were less painful. "Alfred," he coughs, blinded by the sudden clenching of his outraged sinuses, and shoves his way out of the bedroom in search of cold water; really, _really_ cold water, or maybe tiny ice cubes he can snort.

"You all right, Mr. Wayne?" he hears, and has to hold perfectly still for a second against the urge to throw the paper and leave the room, because it's Montoya. He'd know that undertone of amused scorn anywhere.

He shoves down the stinging awfulness behind his eyes and clears his throat. "Detective," he says foggily. "How'd you get stuck with this duty?"

"I had a few questions for you, so I switched out with Davis an hour ago." He hears the rustle of clothing and a few soft footsteps: she took her boots off before sitting down. Unexpectedly polite, probably to set him at ease. Interesting. "Can you even see me? Your eyes are all puffy. Do you need help?"

She's right next to him and no, goddammit, he can barely see her or anything else. Montoya is a five-foot-eight shadow against the big bay windows and his dumb but highly trained muscles are trying to leap to his defense. Also, he's about to sneeze, and it's not going to be pretty.

Frustrated and furious, he brings the paper up to catch the explosion, and blows his nose fiercely. His sinuses crackle.

"Ugh," he says.

"You got _that_ right," Montoya affirms, backing away fast, her face not quite blank enough to hide her disgust.

Bruce glances once at the now-splattered giant photo of himself and Mrs. Grumm arm in arm outside La Lune, and snickers. It surprises him, and it hurts both his face and the myriad bruises hidden under his tee shirt. He folds the paper over, takes a calming breath in preparation for dealing with Montoya, makes the mistake of thinking of the headline (**DECEMBER-MAY AMORE?** in 36-point gothic font; god, that ill-advised extra question mark), and snickers again. Montoya's expression, shading from revulsion to alarm, is the perfect sidebar to this moment.

"G'bless you," she says, suspiciously and from a prudent distance

Bruce leans on the arm of the sofa and laughs hard enough to curl his spine over his knees, paper hanging from one hand and the other spread over his face, stitches moaning into his ribcage, breathless and lightheaded and not sure if this is Wayne providing a heroic distraction from his nighttime alter ego or the onset of insanity. He's probably overdue for a psychotic break.

A wad of tissue appears in the edge of his view, and he grabs it without checking to see who offers and whether they're a threat (_assumptions,_ Henri used to say, _are the greatest failure a man can commit because they are the easiest to avoid_, but Henri probably never snorted half a cup of hot Kona), and blows his nose again.

He's going to smell coffee for the rest of his fucking _life_.

"Thanks," he says, when he's reasonably certain he can speak. He doesn't yet dare to look Montoya in the eye: if she's still giving him what-the-fuck face he's going to end up on the floor, and he'll probably need new stitches. His abdominal muscles are shivery and loose, lungs a little too open, and nothing in his head is in the right place anymore. Fucking endorphins. He shuts his eyes and breathes.

"You look like hell, Mr. Wayne," Montoya says pleasantly.

"I _feel_ like hell," Bruce sighs, and tosses the sodden paper on the floor for Alfred to deal with. He'll pay for that later, he's sure, in a thousand little annoyances, but right now he's too off-balance to give a damn. "Give me a minute, will you, detective?"

The cool water on his face feels wonderful. He looks like a tear gas victim, though, and his expression isn't even close to under control, so he decides to be rude. Montoya can handle it. He sheds the tee shirt and boxers and steps into the shower, where the steam soothes away a little more of the broiled feeling in his sinuses

"Sorry," Wayne offers smoothly, emerging half an hour later in jeans and a sweater; partially to Montoya, who has put her boots back on and is stretched out on the sofa in an obvious act of protest, but mostly to Alfred, who made the snot-soaked tabloid disappear but looks like he's plotting to sign Bruce up for a cheerleading squad for his next alibi.

"Oh, no problem," Montoya says lightly, staring up at the ceiling. "This sofa is more comfortable than my bed."

"I have several beds that beat that sofa by miles, detective. You're welcome to try them out anytime."

He sits, arms stretched over the top of the chair and knees spread wide, as Montoya pulls herself upright. Alfred, invisible behind her, rolls his eyes heavenward and reaches around to set a tea cup in a saucer on the table beside her.

"Somehow I don't think your mattress would match my sleep number," Montoya says dryly.

Wayne makes a sadface, leering, but only a little bit. "Afraid you'll miss the inner spring, detective?"

"No, Mr. Wayne, but your bed frame's so boring and straight." She sips her tea while he bites down on a smile, eyeing him with cool challenge. Her partner must be a very determined woman, either that or a saint. Alfred sets a steaming hot cup of coffee in front of him, eloquent and silent commentary, and Montoya grins delightedly.

God help him if these two spend much more time together.

"If I can just get your answers to a few questions, Mr. Wayne, I'll get out of your hair and you can go back to your afternoon."

He flourishes a hand just to watch her grit her teeth, takes a sip of the coffee to be contrary, and is grateful when it doesn't burn the inside of his face off.

Montoya pulls out a small notebook and a pen. "Have you or your company had any dealings with the following corporations?" She lists several companies in a wide variety of industries, all of them with headquarters in Eastern Europe. It's fairly clear what direction the investigation has taken. Bruce answers absentmindedly, turning over this fact, and trips over a question that he should have asked a long time ago, if he'd been paying attention.

"You can get better answers from Lucius," he adds, helpfully waiting until after she's scribbled a page's worth of notes to mention this. "So who tipped you guys that night, anyway?" he says, and by his butler's sidelong glance and Montoya's audible breath, says it with a little more prurient curiosity than he probably meant to. "Come on, detective," he drawls, leaning back into a lazy sprawl that looks much more comfortable than it actually is. "It's not a state secret, is it?" He sits up, raising both eyebrows. "Oh _god_, it is! It's not Senator Kirsch, is it? Because that whole thing was his wife's idea, I was just too polite to say no."

"Anonymous call," Montoya says, eyeing him narrowly. "Can we be serious for a second, Mr. Wayne?"

"I thought we were."

"I kind of doubt that."

His pulse ticks over. She's giving him cop eyes, hard and cold and cutting. Most people would fold themselves into origami cranes trying to figure out what she suspects them of, which is the whole purpose, of course. She's flushing the low bushes, waiting to see what comes flapping clumsily out of the natural guilt most people feel when a cop stares at them.

Montoya gives great cop eyes.

Montoya has a theory that doesn't put Wayne in a good light, and she's testing the water.

He has to work to damp down the smile he's wearing, which wants to get wider and harder and about as far from indolent, thoughtless Bruce Wayne lazing around his penthouse on a Thursday afternoon as it's possible to get without biting somebody. He should be alarmed. He should be a lot more careful.

He definitely should not be enjoying this.

"I'm hurt, detective," Wayne says. "I thought we had a real connection happening here."

"Uh huh. Look, I'd better get back to the station. Thanks for your time, Mr. Wayne. Please try to keep in mind we're trying to keep you safe, okay? It's easier for us to do if we're in the loop on things."

He watches her thoughtfully as she leaves, spine stiff, hips swaying… feet in those knocked-around boots stomping hell out of the floors. Alfred lets her out with the deference he'd show a duchess, which is, for Alfred, a little heavy on the sarcasm. Then his butler closes the door and sends him a look that underscores what a rookie Montoya really is in the cop eyes department.

"What?" Bruce says after a moment, because he's maybe still a little off-center, and also Alfred does the silent treatment like only an ex-MI5-agent-turned-butler who used to change his diapers can.

"It would be a mistake to underestimate the Gotham City Police. That young lady doesn't like you," Alfred says. Bruce huffs and stands, not yet sure where this is going but not willing to be a sitting target.

"_Nobody_ likes me," he throws over his shoulder. "That's kind of the point."

"Yes, Master Wayne, quite. It is exactly the point. A man in your position ought to have a few friends, don't you think? A few people who can vouch for him. A few hangers-on whose company he actually enjoys, if nothing else."

Not this again. "I have _handball_ and _water polo_," Bruce snarls- actually snarls: it's as unexpected as the sneeze, and equally in need of cleaning up. He sucks in a breath, reaches for the coffee, paces a few mental steps away from the adrenaline that's rolled into his veins. "Sorry about the mess this morning, Alfred."

Alfred pulls the cold coffee cup out of his hand and stares at him from a half a foot away, close enough for Bruce to see the sadness and the accusation in his eyes, the lines around them. "I'd gladly clean up a hundred like it, sir, if they were for the same reason."

"I'll make sure I'm seen out having drinks with a few of the guys from the water polo team," Bruce offers, and Alfred pulls in a slow breath, eyes narrowing, so he knows he got that wrong.

"Of course, Master Wayne," Alfred says politely. "You know best."

Oh, _crap._ "Stop that."

"Will you be wanting some tea to go with your brooding solitude, sir?"

"For christ's sake." He stomps into the bedroom to find a pair of socks: he needs air, and he has an appointment to keep. Alfred's perfectly capable of making himself heard from any corner of the penthouse when he wants, though. His voice carries just fine.

"Perhaps a glass of bitters and a plate of ashes, then? A man shouldn't withdraw from all humanity on an empty stomach."

"That's hilarious. Very nice. Where the hell are my socks?"

"In the sock drawer, Master Wayne. Shall I pack a picnic lunch for your sulk?"

Bruce yanks drawers open in grim, harangued silence until a rolled-up sock bounces off his ear, making him duck reflexively and reach for the nearest weapon. He catches its mate before it hits him in the face. There's a knife handle in his fist and the ghost of a squelched defensive reflex riding his muscles, pushing more adrenaline into his blood, dragging him off-center. Not that he's really been centered all damned morning. He slides the knife back into place behind the bed, trying not to think about how close he came to throwing it.

Alfred faces him from across the bed, expressionless and enviably unruffled, hands locked behind his back. "There you are, sir," he says, with flawless courtesy.

The knot in his chest is either a shout or another disastrous snicker, he isn't sure which, and he doesn't want to find out. Eyes never leaving Alfred, he slowly puts on the socks and straightens. "Thanks."

"Dinner will be at five, sir."

The threat is clear. Bruce pictures chicken cacciatore sailing across the dining room toward him precisely at five pm, and sighs.

"What is it you want me to do, Alfred?" he asks -braces, too. Asking Alfred this question is a peace offering, the only peace offering that works in the rare moments when Alfred digs his heels in. But it also means, invariably, getting a highly specific list for an answer. One that won't be easy to wiggle out of.

"_Visit her grave_, Master Wayne," Alfred says with cool precision.

For a second the breath is pressed utterly from his lungs. When they unlock and fill it's too loud a sound; he can hear how obvious it is, how raw, how far away from either Wayne's easy charisma or the Bat's cold reason. He can feel his face finding some new expression, one he doesn't recognize and didn't choose and can't, at the moment, stuff under a cowl: and he sucks in another, far more deliberate breath and snatches his coat out of the closet.

"I'll be back by five," he says.

"I'll be here, sir," he hears from behind him, and then he's out the door, walking fast, wishing for dusk and flight.


	14. Chapter 14

Mrs. Grumm's kitchen is exactly the same as it was two decades ago: not even the clock-faced cookie jar she keeps next to the stove has changed.

Bruce cradles a fragile tea cup filled, incongruously, with brandy, and stares at the hanging pictures in her foyer. A pair of children span the whole length of one wall, faces losing baby fat over the journey from corner arch to door frame, hair and clothes changing, expressions growing more sullen and then less so. The last two photographs are of young man with acne, a desperate smile, and an eyebrow piercing, and a girl in crisp Marine blues with a dazzling grin and a shaved head.

"Elias and Jeanine," Mrs. Grumm says shortly, and doesn't bother to elaborate. She hands him a phillips-head screwdriver. "Come on, genius, let's see if you know what to do with a busted hinge."

"I hold onto the thick end of the screwdriver, right?" Bruce says, earning a rough bark of a laugh and a second splash of brandy in his tea cup, which he plans to dump behind a bush the moment he gets outside. Even the smell is a little nauseating. "So was there any damage to your Hummer?" he asks, following Mrs. Grumm's slow journey through a light-filled dining room to big French doors looking out over a winter garden. Snow lies lightly on dormant rose bushes and a bunch of other plants he doesn't know the names of. Mrs. Grumm walks out in her house dress. Bruce snatches an afghan off a chair, taking the excuse to set the hideous brandy on an end table. He hands the blanket to her as she turns, braving a glower that would blister paint.

"It's cold," he informs her, and edges around her to see the broken gate.

Her garden hasn't changed much either: this whole estate appears to have been frozen in time somewhere around when Clinton was elected.

"You left rather a lot of your paint job on the underside of my front bumper, but there wasn't a scratch otherwise," Mrs. Grumm says serenely, wrapping the afghan over her shoulders. "That monstrosity was worth every cent."

"Great," Bruce mutters, and the old lady snorts. "So tell me what I'm supposed to be doing to pay for all the paint I left on your grill, Mrs. Grumm. This gate doesn't seem to be in terrible shape, but I admit this is a little outside of my area of expertise."

"Your area being what, exactly?" Mrs. Grumm says, and Bruce forces a wide grin.

"Having fun," he says, tone full of smug _duh_.

She returns his raised-brow look with equanimity and not a shred of credence. He thinks he might have been eleven the last time she looked at him like that. She'd had black hair back then, with two wide streaks of gray at the temples like the bride of Frankenstein, and favored silk pantsuits in loud shades of purple. He'd picked one of her roses without permission, and wound up washing her car to apologize.

The parallel strikes him, cutting through the clamor of objectives waiting for the sun to set, the white noise of Wayne's shallow charm, and the jangling of nerves still trying to settle.

He eyes her, trying to catch some hint in her expression that she sees it too, even did it on purpose, but Mrs. Grumm only offers him a perfunctory smile and walks through the knee-high white fence that leads to her rose garden. Bruce follows her, screwdriver dangling from his fingers, and utters a startled yelp of laughter when he sees the ten foot wrought iron monster that brackets the other side of the garden, arched door leaning drunkenly. The entrance to hell is probably less imposing.

"This is more like it," he says appreciatively, forgetting to be an idiot for a moment. The door squeals painfully when he tries to lift it back into place. "When did you get this? I don't remember it."

"Oh, years ago when that pack of young hoodlums were bashing in mailboxes and joyriding around at night," Mrs. Grumm says mildly.

Bruce, crouching to inspect a hinge, feels heat crawl up out of his collar onto his cheeks. He'd been one of those young hoodlums, at least for a few months. He hunches his shoulders and makes a noncommittal noise. For fuck's sake: he cannot remember the last time he blushed.

"Good thing young men grow out of such things," his neighbor is saying. "Most of them."

Most things or most young men? he wonders.

"…Yeah, Mrs. Grumm. Good thing. Um, I think I'm going to need some screws, maybe? And at least one new hinge, I think. Maybe two or three. Also, I might need to google this before I do anything."

"Well, stop by the hardware store on your way here tomorrow, then," Mrs. Grumm tells him impatiently. "There's one at the bottom of the hill in the ugly little mall."

He got several d-clips there one day when he was in a hurry to catch a serial killer who liked to climb, so he knows where it is. He didn't realize he was coming back here tomorrow, though, and he straightens, rubbing the back of his neck and trying to look as useless as possible.

It does no good. Mrs. Grumm only pulls the screwdriver out of his hand and leads him inside for another horrifying cup of brandy, one he can't find a polite or sneaky way out of. He can hide his entire body in half a shadow on a busy city street, but he can't dodge an old lady with a limp and an inexplicable penchant for plum-based booze.

Somehow he ends up agreeing to another attempt on the gate, and also a trip to a flower shop for "something to brighten up her kitchen". He leaves not knowing quite how it happened, and takes his crumpled Lamborghini and dignity off to the warehouse to take Klein Inc.'s data encryption apart, because all this bottled frustration ought to be put to some use.


	15. Chapter 15

Klein is clean.

Clean like criminal investigations where the suspect is high-profile and the chain of evidence cannot have even the suggestion of a weak link; clean like a forensics lab two days before the annual inspection nobody is supposed to know is coming. The lack of clutter in their files is unsettling in so many ways he only realizes he missed his chance to track Rugetti's men to wherever Faceless passes them orders, along with the entire rest of the night, when a saucer slides onto the counter by his elbow. He looks up to see a dingy sunrise in progress on cameras twelve through twenty three. The Narrows look softer in the hazy light of a cold December morning, their streets dusted with snow, only a tired third shift navigating the broken curbstones to their beds. Crime sleeps in.

So does the Bat, generally, but not today.

"Thanks," he mutters, but Alfred's already gone. The cup is not coffee but tea, something delicate and strange. For a second he's sure Alfred drugged it, but then memory catches up to tired taste buds and he knows it's _tsheringma_, something he last drank in Bhutan two years ago, while sitting outside the home of a woman so withered and weathered her face had looked like a dried apple. She'd been afraid of him. The air had been full of the dry scent of her cooking flatbreads and his own singed hair and clothing, and his shoulder, still weak and aching from hauling Henri back from the cliff's edge, had throbbed so badly he'd been forced to use his left hand to eat.

And in spite of the pain and exhaustion everything had been clear, so clear and so simple: all the knots he had tied himself into over the years had come untangled, every thread woven into a plan that arrived whole, and wholly consuming, like love or grief; Henri's lessons coalescing into something even he, imperturbable, calculating, and patient as glaciers, couldn't have predicted. Gotham in all her grit and darkness, calling him back with the inexorable pull of a star.

Purpose.

He sips the tea, losing himself in the sense-memory for a moment. He's long since stopped wondering where Alfred finds obscure items like this, much less how he arrives at the understanding that such small, prodding acts are necessary, the moment for them just right.

It's worrying, knowing he's that transparent, even if it's to a man he's trusted with much more than his life.

He leaves the warehouse with the cup cradled in his hand and a flashdrive in his pocket, and sits in the waiting room of Klein's R&D division for forty five minutes with a crowd of nervous internship applicants, letting their gabble wash over him. One ear is tuned to the soft pad of boots as the security people make their twenty-minute rounds. His Princeton sweatshirt definitely doesn't fit well anymore: his shoulders were much smaller in college. And the wig is a little too big, and it itches.

"Tea?" the receptionist offers, one wary eye on the interns, who are now grinning and passing a phone around. Bruce nods, slides out of his seat the second she disappears, lets himself into the restroom across the lobby and, after checking the stalls, makes one adjustment to the tank feed of the first toilet. Then he stands on the sink and shoves his way past an air duct grill into the vent system he found on the blueprints Klein deleted two years ago.

It's much easier moving in these things when he's in the suit, and has a grapple gun.

His sneakers slide and catch, the sweatshirt is _stupidly_ constricting, and the effort of moving without putting too much pressure on anything potentially noisy makes every bruise and cut on his body ache. Three turns brings him to an access hatch that opens out onto an elevator shaft. He swings out - and then rapidly back in, breathless and windblown, as an elevator goes by like a slow-motion bullet.

Wouldn't this be a stupid way to die? he thinks, and then leaps for the other side of the shaft, resisting the urge to shut his eyes.

The room he's looking for is right there, thank fuck. He watches from the grill of the air vent while a thin woman with ferocious red-orange hair checks pipettes. When she leaves his sight and he hears a door click shut he pulls the grill off gently and eases himself down, dropping immediately to crouch behind a bank of quietly humming machinery. The lab looks like any other to his untrained eye. His flashdrive beeps quietly; he removes it from the lab terminal and hauls himself back into the air ducts. Nine minutes.

There's a kid whistling something modern and irritating in the first stall when he returns, so he toes his sneakers off and drops to the floor with them in his hand, waits a moment, then walks noisily across the tile to splash some water in the sink. The kids stops whistling and flushes. There's an ominous hissing noise, then the kid yelps and the stall door flies open to expel him, still buttoning his pants, eyes wide.

"Man, I don't know - I mean, I didn't _do_ anything, you know? But-"

"Out," Bruce says simply, and shoves the both of them toward the bathroom door. There's a ferociously loud _plink!_ as something in the main water feed behind the wall gives, and Bruce gets the kid by the collar and pushes him out into the waiting room in front of him and just a little to the right, so that all the security camera gets of him is a puff of ginger wig and maybe a shoulder. Behind them water is gushing out of the tanks of all three toilets at a rate of about a cubic foot per second. They have maintenance people in this building, but still: Klein R&D is probably going to have to close for the day. Which will give his malware plenty of time to worm into every hidden file and masked archive they have.

He's a bit sorry about the mess, though. It's going to be considerable.


	16. Chapter 16

**_Notes_ ...Okay, so _clearly_ I have no idea how to add notes. I'm just going to stuff them in at the top, here, and hope I'm not screwing anything up too badly. And also hope that there aren't tags or warnings I'm supposed to be adding now that there's a -well, a tag-y, warning-y thing? You know. See below.**

**Anyway. This chapter right here is what happens when I get all plotty and verbose. (Also, I may have had too much coffee. They are often connected.) Sorry. And thanks muchly to you all for reading: my love for you is big and true. :)**

* * *

At the penthouse Tweedle is reading the Post, so he gets a good view, as he's walking in the door, of his thousand-watt grin displayed next to Mrs. Grumm's suspicious scowl like the strangest interpretation of the Greek comic-tragic masks ever to see daylight. Somehow the Post's color print process has made his teeth even whiter. He winces. Tweedle folds the paper down with a stony expression and stands. Bruce puts his hands up.

"You got me," he says gravely. "I'll come quietly, I promise."

Not amusing, apparently. Tweedle sucks his teeth for a second. Bruce wonders how that much irritation tastes: probably like alum, if the expression that follows is any indicator.

"Not much point in having a protective detail if you leave without it, Mr. Wayne."

"Sorry," Wayne offers. "I won't do it again, there was just this person I had to meet and she really didn't- - I mean, this person didn't-" Tweedle is still glowering, but there's something amused under the glare. Bruce lets his shoulders slump. "She wanted some privacy," he finishes lamely.

"And you think all criminals and assassins are guys?"

_So far_, Bruce thinks, and smiles an apology, knowing it looks less real than a nine dollar bill: he's seen this one in a mirror. "Fair point. I'll make sure to Iet you know when I'm going out next time, deal? Deal," he finishes, not giving Tweedle a chance to reply for himself, and strolls through the living room to kick his shoes off and toss the duffel bag holding his sneakers and sweatshirt into the bedroom.

There's mail piled on the dresser, yet another pithy silent comment from Alfred. If he doesn't give in soon, or provide a truly impressive distraction, he'll be doing his own laundry and his meals will start looking like something intended for nursing home residents. The last time they'd both gotten this thoroughly entrenched on opposite sides of an issue he'd woken up one morning to find Wayne Manor had adopted four siamese cats with temperaments that made every vain decoration he'd ever had on his arm look reasonable by comparison, and also a ferret, which immediately escaped and hid in his closet, growling whenever he opened the door. The cats had set off the infrared security half a dozen times every goddamn night until he'd given in. Somehow the ferret had made it down into the cave, not a stellar comment on his security, where it had waged an epic, furry war on the bats for weeks before vanishing. Every lingering childhood dream of owning a pet had died an emphatic death that month.

He picks up the envelopes, determined to suffer through whatever extremes Alfred can conjure this time.

Most look like they were intended to reach the board, some are invitations to new clubs or social events. He sorts through them, feeling the high of risk begin to bleed away. He missed an appointment on this little adventure, and he'll have to present a plausible reason for that, something besides a too-long nap, which is what he'd prefer right now. He heads to the shower, and sighs when he sees his usual shampoo has been replaced with something cheap-looking called Pantene.

A little over an hour later his hair looks much like it does at the end of a particularly strenuous night trapped under the cowl (except it's weirdly shiny, for some reason). That fact that this style works equally well for ninja-vigilante afterglow and a night out at Gotham's latest club scene probably doesn't bode well for his evening, or at least not for his company. Two water-polo teammates are about to get a crash course in Wayne's love affair with paparazzi, which he sort of feels bad about - but they were the least pleasant people of the team, chosen specifically for those personality traits, and he figures they can probably handle it. He straightens the blue Chinese-collared shirt Alfred set out for this experience, a choice he suspects is also ironic in some way he can't quite put his finger on, and takes a few breaths, trying to find Wayne's particular brand of grating charisma and slide it over the scowl that's currently on his face.

Christ, he hopes dancing isn't a requirement for this sort of thing. He might have to actually get drunk in that case.

He breezes out into the living room to collect Tweedle and almost trips over the sofa, because Montoya is on it again.

"Woah, déjà vu," he says, he hopes not too sharply.

"You're telling me," Montoya says from behind her magazine. "I don't think the impression of my ass actually had time to fade from this thing."

Bruce leers, which is somehow easier to do with disturbingly shiny hair, as it turns out. Good to know. "It could only add to the décor, detective. So you're coming clubbing with me, I take it?"

She lowers the newspaper an inch at a time, revealing a pair of really unamused eyes. "Apparently," she says sourly.

"Oh come on, it'll be fun. I hear this place has a really great bar. I guess you'd probably better pose as my date, right? If it's an undercover, you know, thing. I'll be a gentleman, I swear." He pauses to eye her dark trousers and suit jacket, which scream cop. "I probably have a few dresses that are around your size in here somewhere," he says doubtfully. "Uh, well. Maybe. People are always leaving things. Let me talk to Alfred-"

"I'll be going just like this, Mr. Wayne, thanks."

"Oh. Well, that's… right. I'm sure that's fine. You look great." Bruce rakes her with another bemused stare, then gives her a smile with about as much fake shine as his hair is currently emitting. The way her nostrils are flaring is almost enough to make the inconvenience of this whole experience worthwhile. He leans over and offers his arm, like he thinks she can't get off the couch without it, just to see if she'll actually be able to blister the paint on the walls with that stare. Maybe she'll hit him now.

"So how do you feel about this gangnam dancing thing?" he asks, gravely and with air quotes, as they're descending to the lobby. He almost grins at the way her face goes perfectly blank with suppressed horror.

The club is exactly as hideous as he suspected it would be, though at least the epileptic strobes going off in random pulses disguise the flash of cameras somewhat.

Bruce leans back against a postmodern horror of a chair, trying to look like it doesn't take any effort to stay in that position, and sips at something alarmingly nuclear blue that came with a kebab-length stick of kiwi slices. It tastes like mountain dew and acid rain. He'd have preferred whiskey by far, but he doesn't think the bartender would have had any idea what he was talking about.

Dave and Bill of water polo fame did exactly what he thought they'd do and honed in on Montoya, who is currently fending off their innuendo-poorly-disguised-as-small-talk with a combination of increasingly curt replies and icy silence. When a bottle-redhead in a dress that could have started out life as a doily comes over to ask him to dance he pushes Dave on her, claiming sadly that he "has to stay with his bodyguard".

He can actually see that particular piece of gossip ricocheting around the club, growing more outlandish with every repetition, like a game of drunken strip telephone.

Bill immediately grows more intent on winning Montoya over with his brand of locker-room charm. She sends him a look that promises pain, getting more stoic by the second. It's easy to imagine her in riot gear, facing down a mob of angry protesters.

There are unforeseen plusses to this protective detail nonsense. He's going to remember this exact expression on her face from now on whenever she gets mouthy with the Bat -better, since she seems hellbent on following Wayne's every move, he can just start dragging her to every seedy club, pretentious charity ball, and interminably boring ballet Alfred foists on _his_ schedule.

Yes, this could work out nicely.

"Bruce Wayne! _There_ you are, man, I was starting to wonder if you'd disappeared with another ballet troupe..."

Someone moves into Dave's seat. Bruce has an impression of broad shoulders under tweed and a shining shaved head moving fast, and nearly flings his acid rain cocktail across the small table before he sees Montoya relax out of a defensive posture. Her hand is easing away from her suit jacket and the stranger, who is the size of a professional linebacker but is dressed like a math teacher, sinks into the chair like it actually is comfortable.

A sudden flashback to tenth grade, climbing over Gotham Academy's high brick walls to spend an afternoon joyriding on stolen dirt bikes and bashing in mailboxes, makes Bruce catch his breath. Wayne's reflexive smile falls off his face as the features of the man across from him flicker into the ghost of an expression of asshattery known to sullen teenage boys the world over. He goes still in pure surprise.

"Tommy," he says, slowly, not entirely sure he's gotten it right. "Tommy Elliot."

"You got it." The man leans across to offer a hand, making Montoya twitch again. "Honestly, I wasn't sure you'd remember me; it's been a while, and I had hair back then. You look pretty much like you, though. God knows you still ditch your appointments like you."

"That was _you_ I was supposed to meet this afternoon?"

"Yeah, but I had a bet with my staff you'd stand me up. You won me a hundred bucks."

Wayne's laugh is maybe a little loud: people nearby turn to look. Bruce rises to grasp Tommy's hand, nearly elbowing Montoya in the face in the process.

His grip is warm and firm. Bruce, cataloging the minute changes that have written themselves onto Tommy's face, remembering too much of being fifteen and stupid, holds it for a beat too long, and retreats to his Torquemada chair with Montoya and Bill eyeing him curiously. He picks the drink up, tosses it back, smothers his gag reflex, waves for a waiter, and then Wayne gives the room in general a vapid grin. Everyone but Montoya appears to buy it.

"Childhood friend, he explains casually. "We had some times, Tommy, yeah? Or is it Tom now?"

"Tom," Tommy says firmly, and crosses one leg over the other, surveying the room with a languid confidence that is somewhere between indifference and ownership; it's entirely familiar in a way that echoes right back to_fifteen_ and _stupid_ again, and to something closer, that he can't quite put his finger on. "We had some times indeed. He ever tell you about the-"

"Probably not," Bruce says, before this can degenerate into a list of misdemeanors (and at least one felony) committed by the two of them, all of which would fall under the statute of limitations, and none of which he wants Montoya interrogating Wayne about later on. "Tom, this is Bill, my water polo buddy, and -uh-" he waves a hand in Montoya's direction, making vague grasping gestures like he can snatch her name out of her stony expression, or maybe her cleavage. "Detective."

"Detective," Tom greets her, with just enough wry appreciation for Wayne's idiocy that Montoya cracks a tiny smile and deigns to wave from her safe distance. "So not his date, then."

"Really not. Detective Montoya, GCPD."

"Major Crimes?"

She immediately reverts back to suspicious. "How'd you figure?"

"Saw you on the news a few times this fall. Big mess, huh? You guys have your hands full, catching that psycho."

Bill takes this moment to excuse himself off to the dance floor, no doubt to hit on women he has no chance with. They all shift a bit to make a smaller circle, in what is evidently the mutual hope that Bill and Dave will not come back. Bruce makes a mental note never to invite water polo teammates anywhere again, and also to accidentally bean at least one of them in the face with the ball at the next practice.

"Don't we just," Montoya says, sweetly uninformative, and settles back into her chair with the air of a woman who plans to spend the next few hours being passive-aggressively antisocial. "So you two grew up together, I take it?"

"Big inheritances and dead parents," Tom says, a faint undertone of sadness making the quip more charming than obnoxious. Montoya darts a glance at Bruce from under her lashes, and Bruce knows she's thinking of the story, which she would probably have been too young to remember but which got recycled every time he showed his face for about five years after. He pulls a smarmily self-pitying expression onto his face, holds it until she looks away in disgust. "We spent a lot of time getting into trouble, and even more getting out of it."

"Hooligans," Bruce murmurs, thinking of Mrs. Grumm's monstrous back gate.

Tommy grins. The expression has lost a lot of the fuck-you it had back when they were stupid and fifteen, or even farther back, when they were less stupid and they both had parents. But not all of it is gone; it's just been tempered by whatever happened between then and now. Bruce wonders what Tommy sees in his answering smile, suspects it's nothing but the empty, scattershot glitter of Wayne, and accepts the drink the waiter offers with a mumbled thanks.

"To absent role models," Tom says, and raises his glass, a gesture somewhere between commiseration and dare, one he can hardly turn down under the circumstances. Tom drains his in a smooth toss, so some things haven't changed. Bruce follows suit with a mental sigh, wishing he'd taken the time to eat something before leaving the penthouse. Unless Tom has undergone some truly drastic changes, this is going to be happening all night.

He isn't wrong. Five drinks later there's a pair of mostly-nude girls dancing on the bar, the ambient noise has begun to blur into one giant thundering bass beat, and Montoya is sending him looks that are probably meant to convey her desire to get the hell out of here, but have too much latent amusement to quite achieve true glower. Tom interrupts a less-than-flattering tale of their misspent youth to weave through the sweating throng in the general direction of the head, and Bruce tips the remains of his drink into Tom's mostly-empty glass with pleasure, not bothering to acknowledge Montoya's smirk.

"You want to leave before I have to carry you out of here, Mr. Wayne, or were you planning on making this one for the books?"

"I'm _fine_," he assures her, waving a hand to show just how fine he's not. He comes a hair closer to clipping her than he intended. "I do this _all the time_."

"Right," Montoya says, grim and dry. "Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure he's drinking you under the table."

"You may have a point."

"I generally have a couple, Mr. Wayne. Why don't I get you a glass of water and we can get out of here."

Bruce slumps back in the chair, finding that easier and easier to do as the alcohol works on his muscles. Maybe other people actually find these chairs acceptable. Maybe he's the only one who thinks they belong in an interrogation room. Maybe you just have to be drunk; if so, it's a clever way to ensure a good cash night. The women on the bar have been joined by two men in various states of undress, who aren't entirely welcome, if the minor scuffle that ensues is any indicator. Bruce sees Bill's red, intent face describing a rapid arc away from the cleavage he was apparently attempting to press it to, and decides that yes, it's definitely time to go.

This place is full of careless stupidity and desperation, and Tom has dragged far too many recollections of his adventures with both of those things to the surface of his mind. The desire for silence and darkness is making his veins hum. It's probably closing on one am, maybe if he can clear the alcohol out of his blood he can be in the Narrows by two.

"Why don't we get out of here, detective," he says, like he just this second thought of this, and stands, waving for the check. "I'll just say my farewells to Tom and join you in a minute."

He can feel her eyes boring into the back of his neck the whole way to the restroom, where the outward-opening door comes at him fast enough that he deflects it with the heel of a hand before his brain can remind his reflexes that he's Wayne, and drunk, and this is probably an appropriate moment to be hit in the face with a bathroom door. The guy on the other side sends him a startled glance and then shuffles out of the way, and it's brighter in here, but at least the lights are steady. The music is muffled by the heavy door. Bruce leans against it for a second, breathing quietly, fighting the cumulative effect of too many drinks, too few meals, too many nights with too little sleep. He could pop the frame off the window above the sinks and be out of here in half a minute, but for Montoya.

"You look pretty tired," Tommy says, and Bruce squelches the impulse to duck and spin-kick, instead squinting one eye slowly open as Tom pushes off the opposite wall, where he was apparently just loitering (waiting?) and nudges the tap of the first sink on.

He can tell by the echoes there's nobody else in the room.

"It's been a rough few weeks," Bruce says, feeling Wayne start to slide out of his grasp, made slippery by vodka and weariness and memory. He straightens. "You know how it is. Board meetings, fundraisers… _things_…"

Tom makes a face, and Bruce remembers that Tommy didn't inherit nearly as much from his mother as Bruce did- not that that's saying much, since there are small countries that don't clear what Wayne Enterprises makes in a quarter. Still, there was a certain soreness about that subject when they were adolescents, and Wayne's tendency to toss his billions carelessly in people's faces is probably especially unwelcome here.

"Yeah," Tom says, without that edge of bitterness Bruce remembers from school. "And police protection, which seems like a new class of exhausting, even for you. You okay, Bruce? I mean, really? Because that woman didn't give me the impression you hired her for show."

"I didn't _hire _her at all," Bruce says acridly, and then catches himself. "It's nothing. Some threats, you know the deal. I think the mayor put them up to it, to be honest. I wrote a pretty big check for his last campaign, and he's up for reelection in a few years."

Tom smirks, an expression complicated by sympathy, maybe a little residual envy, and a firm comprehension of the self-interest that drives most acts of generosity. For a second he looks exactly like the boy that picked the locks on the school storeroom and spent an afternoon awarding mid-term test cheat sheets to the students that could do the best backflips. He'd been a force of nature in high school, taller than anyone else in the class and determined to be out in front of any group. An easy laugh and a sudden temper, a love for quick schemes that never quite achieved their aims, a tendency to hold grudges, a fierce territoriality about his friends. And beneath all of that an undertow of raw rage and buried grief, sucking away at the sand on which he built all his big plans.

A mirror Bruce had badly needed at the time.

Tom's hands have been thoroughly scrubbed at least twice now, and he holds them curled loosely in the air while he leans to bump the hand dryer on with a hip. _Surgeon_, Bruce concludes, the back of his brain working mostly on autopilot, the front of it tangled up in the self-reflection he rarely allows himself when sober and can't seem to escape when drunk. _A surgeon._ _Good for Tommy_.

Not what he would have imagined for that angry, rowdy kid he'd spent so much time screwing up with. He wonders what Tommy would have imagined for _him_, then decides that's really not a productive line of thought.

"I ought to get back to her, speaking of," Bruce says, or tries to. Tom is suddenly next to him, making him twitch, getting to the door to grip the handle he's already holding onto. He outright freezes when Tom moves even closer, that easy, crooked smile not at all matching the intensity in his eyes or the lean of his body. Bruce holds very still, because the alternative, for the moment, is to do serious damage, and there isn't enough evidence to justify that. Yet. His peripheries are widening as he watches for the arm-slide of a reach for a blade, the shoulder roll of a telegraphed punch. His blood is clearing itself of the goddamned drinks in an almighty hurry.

Wayne's oil-slick smile is on his face, but he seriously doubts it's made it to his eyes.

When Tom leans the rest of the way, moving just slow enough to allow him to dodge if he wants to, and scrapes four fingers and a thumb over the line of his jaw, he thinks in amazement, _Oh_.

This is one outcome of the evening's adventures he didn't plan for.

He has a polite dismissal forming in his head. It sounds regretful, genuine, maybe a little interested, definitely a lot uncomfortable. It never has a chance to get past his lips, because he's moving forward on some hindbrain impulse that didn't stop to check with common sense before kicking in; instead of backing away he is crowding into Tom's space, and now those surgeon's hands (silk-soft, tiny calluses from repeated scalpel use on index and thumb, scent of soap and good cologne) are sliding into his hair and pulling just enough, and somewhere in the middle of that he palms that smooth-shaven scalp, and seriously, what the _fuck_.

Tom may have changed a lot, but he sure as hell kisses like he's fifteen and pissed off at everything in the world he still doesn't own.

Bruce polishes that little _thanks-but-no_ speech spinning around his frontal lobe, preparing to launch it out and save himself the moment he can get his mouth back, but Tom's teeth digging hard into his lower lip short out most of the neurons dedicated to good judgment. He can taste blood. He releases the door handle and shoves forward again, until they're up against each other and the delirious sensation of Tom's dick pressed up against his makes him hiss through his teeth and tilt his hips. Stupid jeans. Stupid - stupid whatever Tom is wearing that's in the way right now, he can't even fucking remember.

Khakis, they were khakis, brownish-tan/stiff cotton/contrast stitches- patched-elbow tweed jacket- good shoes, worn hard- funny tan line on the neck- fading tan line of an absent ring on one hand-

One of those insanely soft hands shoves up under his stupid shirt, the collar of which is now close to strangling him, and derails the automatic recollection of evidence in an electric rush of sensation. Bruce takes a breath that's half gasp and falls back, shoulders knocking into the door. All the muscles in his abdomen jump and flutter in a disorienting mix of arousal and fight-flight reaction that rides the glorious edge of pain. He arches without taking his weight off the door and drags Tommy toward him, licks and bites into that swollen mouth.

Their tongues tangle up in a slick, twisting knot. Tommy rakes short fingernails over his nipple and across his bruised ribcage and growls, and it's somehow not at all the hilarious sound it should be, coming from a man dressed like MIT's nerdiest new adjunct professor. His other hand snakes down between them, deftly unzips and navigates toward naked flesh in an exploration so teasingly delicate it's almost unbearable; then he finds what he is looking for and squeezes. Bruce sways forward helplessly- except that he's not helpless, he's never helpless, so he sinks his teeth into Tommy's collar bone, tasting salt and spice, pushing against flesh with his tongue until it yields and he is rewarded with an even lower growl and a dizzyingly hard grip on his dick. Tommy bites his earlobe, which he would never have guessed was a thing, but jesus _christ_, there's a good chance he'll end up on his knees if that happens again.

Nerves are sending off little bursts of liquid heat all over him. Tommy is breathing into his ear, making his skin ripple with goosebumps. Tommy's right hand is moving now, an agonizingly slow slide with a small twist at the top that curls his toes against the insides of his shoes.

This is exactly the kind of moment where he's meant to employ all of Henri's careful training, the mental exercises for pushing sensation out of the way of rational thought, keeping it far away from his decision-making processes. He stills for a second, fighting his way toward that more out of habit than desire.

Then Tommy's hand rolls upward again, thumb rising to circle over the hypersensitive nerves in the head with pitiless accuracy, and he can feel his eyes rolling right back into his head.

"Goddammit," Bruce grits, breathless and angry at nothing he can name, and he shoves a hand rudely past Tommy's belt. It's been a long time. The feel of Tommy in his palm, the scratch of hair and the hard length of smooth, fervent fullness sliding under a layer of heated skin is itself almost enough to finish him. He pants into a neck dampening with the first tiny beads of sweat, twists until his grip is good despite the restriction of clothing. Tommy groans approval and thrusts twice into his closed fist, then takes an unsteady breath, pausing, and leans back to meet his eyes.

Ah. _There's _that fuck-you grin.

This is the first time in their lives it's had a literal application. Bruce gives it right back, and struggles to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut when Tommy's fingers pulse around him and begin to pull and twist at once, no delicacy or reluctance in the motion, nor the faintest shred of mercy. He mirrors the movement, licks a wet stripe up the underside of Tommy's neck, and shudders in a shock of knee-loosening pleasure when teeth bite again into his earlobe, hard enough to draw blood this time. He can't get enough room from feeling to breathe or think or pace himself; all he can do is match a brutal rhythm and stay on his feet.

He hopes nobody has a pressing need for the men's right now: the Post will have a much more interesting picture of him to lead with tomorrow if so.

_At least my teeth won't be in it_, he thinks, though he supposes that's not guaranteed: and then he comes hard enough to send the breath rushing out of his lungs and the back of his head flying against the door, as Tommy grips him bruisingly tight and swipes his thumb upward one last time. The sound that is wrenched from his throat is unplanned, unintended, and much too loud for the situation, but Tommy covers it with one of his own, pushing up into his slickened fist, biting at his shoulder and shuddering to a breathless halt.

They breathe into one another's collarbones for a few moments, heads bowed, leaning on each other and the door.

"Glad I got the chance to catch up with you," Tommy says mildly, puffing a tickle of air into the hollow of his throat, and Bruce chuckles. Amazing. He could fall asleep right against this fucking door, with music and idiocy howling on the other side of it, a detective of the GCPD waiting for him, and a man's hand curled in the front of his pants.

"I guess I should stand you up more often." Jesus, his voice is all scratchy. He clears his throat, retrieves his hand, tries to straighten up, to open his eyes all the way.

"How about you lay me down instead," Tommy hums, low, the words vibrating into his skin. Bruce shivers, and is immediately embarrassed at how blatantly obvious that reaction is.

"Deal," he says automatically, and then wonders what he's getting himself into.

All the thoughts he should have been thinking ten minutes ago are rushing back, winding tension back into his shoulders and caution back into his expectations. For a second he wishes fiercely that he could have just one more minute of this blissful blankness, and then common sense kicks in (_way_ too late) and tells him he's backed up against the door of a public restroom in a very crowded club, and the hand down his pants is not his, and also Tom is two-twenty of solid muscle and this is a very bad position to have to defend himself from and he has _no_ fucking idea what Tom wants from him-

"Hey," Tom says, sliding his hand delicately out and rolling to lean against the door beside him. "Take a breath. I'm not proposing, Bruce. Jesus, you're wound."

"A little," Bruce agrees. "Sorry. Long few weeks."

"Long few months, I'm betting." Tom pushes off to nudge a faucet back to life. Bruce follows suit, keeping a careful distance, trying to ignore the fact that his pants are still open and his hands are shaking just a little bit. "I was sorry to hear about Rachel," Tom says casually, with no indication in his voice or body language that he is aware he's just knocked all the breath out of Bruce's lungs. "I heard you two stayed close."

Hearing her name when he's still putting himself back together is -not good.

Bruce digs fingernails into his palm hard enough that he feels the skin break. "Hngh," he says, not capable of anything more coherent for the moment. Fuck, _fuck_.

His eyes in the mirror are too real for Wayne, too raw for the Bat; he cannot walk out of here like this. He draws three slow breaths and applies the training he _should_ have been leaning on ten minutes ago, then meets Tom's sideways look with a faint smile. He can't manage Wayne right now, and it would be a slap in the face anyway. Nobody deserves to be met with Wayne on the other side of sex, even if it was rushed, fully clothed sex in the bathroom of a nightclub. He settles with difficulty on something closer to the memory of _fifteen_ and _stupid_ and_friend_, and wonders with a certain amount of despair if he's going to need to invent a new name for this one. "Yeah, it's been hard, I won't lie."

Tom is eyeing him with plain, cool curiosity and more than a little disbelief, so apparently he hasn't gotten the tone quite right. He holds that gaze for about a minute, long enough to prove to himself he can, and then turns his attention to the front of his pants, which definitely need the attention. Thank christ the shirt is long enough to cover this.

The knock on the door saves him from whatever Tom was planning to say, and makes them both twitch toward defensive crouches; it's the standard four hard raps of a cop. In this closed tiled room with his blood still roaring in his ears it's so goddammed loud he comes close to leaping for the window.

"Mr. _Wayne_," Montoya says through the door, the edge in her voice so sharp with irritation he can't help but smile a little, though the thought of her seeing this scene and drawing the inevitable conclusion from it is not particularly funny. "If you're not out of there in _one minute_ I am coming in."

"Yes mommy," Tom sings, because Tom does not fully comprehend the perpetual motion machine of sarcasm and tenacity that is Montoya, and Tom won't have to listen to her loud silence all the way back to the penthouse.

"We'll catch up sometime soon," Bruce says, and Tom, turning to stare with an intensity that is either dawning post-coital _what-did-I-just-do_ or possibly myopia, nods shortly. "Promise I won't stand you up again," Bruce adds, trying for Wayne's greasy affability and not quite managing it. The predatory look this assurance puts in Tom's eyes makes the skin at the base of his neck prickle for a number of reasons, none of which he's willing to examine right now.

Shit. Facing Alfred in this state, because Alfred will likely be waiting up, is going to be about as much fun as playing chicken with the mob. He opens the door before Montoya can kick it in.

Montoya's expression has sailed past stony into glacial. Her dark, baleful gaze takes in Bruce top to bottom, goes out of focus, then flicks beyond him to give Tom the same treatment. There's a moment of silence. Her head tilts just a fraction to the right, her expression freezes into careful blankness, and Bruce finds he can't look at her face anymore. He can tell from the set of her shoulders and her slightly rounded eyes that she's only a few seconds away from either laughing out loud or yelling, and he really doesn't want to be in earshot for either one of those things.

"You guys… done in here?" she says. Confounding all expectations there is only a tiny tremor of suppressed amusement in her voice. Bruce edges past her and is nearly felled by the sweltering thunder of dubstep that rolls at him from the main dance floor

"It was a pleasure meeting you, detective," Tom calls over the din.

"Oh, right back at you, Mr. Elliot. A _real_ pleasure."

This is going to suck a lot.


	17. Chapter 17

"You want me to call a cab, or do you have a limo waiting around here somewhere?"

He has a car waiting eight blocks up at the penthouse, which is a stupid reason to wake up his driver, plus he needs the dark and the clean, cold air it carries as badly as he needs to take a hot shower, think about how exactly this night went completely sideways on him, and then maybe dress up like a bat and hit someone deserving in the face many times. "I could use the walk to clear my head," he says, and is both grateful and wary when there is no snide comment in reply.

Montoya walks not even a little bit cop-like. It's weird. She _moseys_. Her hands are in her pockets and her feet kick out at the top of each stride, and it makes her look about twelve. Armed, and twelve.

This probably isn't an improvement on the puppy image.

"So," she says, and Bruce sighs.

"Can we maybe do this tomorrow?" he says, without the faintest hope she'll allow this.

"Walk back to your penthouse?"

He looks at her. She grins, teeth glinting in the faint light from above. "I was going to ask if you wanted to take Charles or Washington."

"Oh." He pauses, thinking, and decides with regret that Wayne wouldn't know this city at all by foot. "I have no idea."

"Charles it is," Montoya says, and strides forward with no more mosey: he'd have to make an effort to catch up with her now. He chooses to see this as a polite way of giving the drunk billionaire a moment to collect himself and maybe smooth down his sex hair instead of the challenge it probably is, and he takes it gladly. He can think of few people that would be more grating company post surprise-bathroom-handjob than Montoya.

He lags behind, letting his steps slow, eyes on that distinctive cop-stride as she begins to fade into the street shadow. He can take a deeper breath now, something with more of the grit of the city in it, less of the charmless glitz that follows Wayne everywhere like a bad perfume. The sounds of faraway arguments and drunken fights and bar music float toward him through the sallow dark.

He could be -_should_ be- out there right now. There are robberies and assaults happening; there are people killing; there are people fighting for their lives. There are mob workers receiving shipments of drugs with which to flood the city's streets; there are people overdosing on Freeze; there are kids hiding from predators. There are millions of struggling souls trying to make it through another night in a city that defines _survival of the fittest,_ that rolls onward endlessly via the rule of the gun and the fist and the silent flow of cash.

There's someone who calls himself Hush, with bigger and subtler plans than anybody yet knows. Batman included.

He slows farther, caught in the image of Gotham twisting on itself in the sodium-stained dark, mind turning over the pieces of the puzzle; the evidence, the bodies, the chemical compounds. Some mental echo he can't quite get a grip on drags at his steps, turning them: and then he breathes the scent of old popcorn and hears muffled singing, and he knows.

Crime Alley is to his right.

At the other end of it is a spot he's stood at many times, on the nights when he needs that extra infusion of rage to push him onward into the next battle, or the nights when memory resonates too loudly and he can still feel the batter of his pulse pushing back against the training.

This is what they've been reduced to, Thomas and Martha Wayne, the city's gentle, brilliant would-be saviors: a motive.

It's not much of an epitaph.

He realizes he's stopped, and that Montoya is beside him again, so he must have stopped for longer than he knows. He rubs his forehead, makes a whiny scrunched-up face, and turns to stumble past her as though he's having a hard time walking steadily.

"Should have called for the limo," he says ruefully.

Montoya hasn't moved: she is eyeing the murky darkness at the end of the long stretch of street, the faint lights, the dark windows. She turns and pins him with a look that's considering, intelligent, some cross between cop eyes and plain, honest curiosity that he's still too raw to slip entirely out from under. He shoves his hands in his pockets, which reminds him unpleasantly of the messy results of surprise handjobs in public bathrooms. The little packets of wet wipes Montoya keeps flinging at him -no, at the Bat- would come in fairly handy right now.

For a second he fights the urge to laugh, and then he spins on a heel and stalks off, because goddammit, he's had quite enough of being thrown off his balance in the last few days. Montoya can hover here staring at old violence for the rest of the night if she wants to; he's going to shower.

The sound of her footsteps behind him is both predictable and annoying.

The sound of footsteps coming from behind _her,_ footsteps that have none of the stride or strike of people coming back from a late night at the bar, is a bit more ominous but just as predictable. It's one thirty in the morning. The Gotham he fights for is on its way to bed, and the Gotham he fights _with_ is stretching its legs.

He slows a fraction, enough to make it easy for Montoya to catch up with him. He is all the way sober now, muscles moving smoothly together, vision sharpening, ears catching the echo of steps behind his GCPD escort. They are definitely men, there are three of them, one has a faint limp, and he's fairly certain they are all riding high on Gotham's favorite new designer drug, which isn't great news for Wayne and Montoya. The long stretch of shop window he is passing tells him they carry the short, home-made weighted clubs some smartass dubbed_batbashers_. Better than knives, much, much better than guns, but still capable of doing plenty of damage to unprotected flesh.

Twenty-something screw-ups out for a night of light violence, maybe, looking for the few hundred in cash and smartphones that come from this kind of opportunistic theft. Not generally worth the Bat's attention.

_You're Wayne_, Bruce reminds himself, because he's still reeling a bit from the events of the night, and like Gordon, Montoya has a tendency to make him act like an idiot, and dear _christ_ he wants to break some faces right now, but that's not going to be an option.

Montoya comes alongside. Her expression is cool and amused and the bounce in her step is back; she hasn't missed the tail they've gathered. "You're going to need to do what I tell you to now, Mr. Wayne," she says, quiet and ferociously cheerful. Wayne's surprised head-turn makes her hiss. 'No sudden moves, _do not look behind us_, keep walking and laugh like I just said something funny please. Great, now when we pass Belmont I want you to stumble like you tripped over something and go down on your knees, then roll sideways into the Belmont side of this building and Stay. There. Do not ask questions and do not fuck up, please."

"Um- okay?" Wayne breathes, shoulders hunched and steps hesitating, classic just-noticed-somebody's-following-me body language. Montoya makes a noise better suited to angry tigers than cops, leans to take his arm and laughs, like they're a drunk couple heading home. Her muscles are tense and ready next to his. She's really not bad.

But she's dressed like a cop and he may look soft but he's still six-four and broad, and judging by the practiced stalking happening behind them these men are not dilettantes. She's got Wayne to shepherd, and he doesn't think she's yet noticed that the street shadow at the edge of Belmont has shifted.

They're being herded.

This looks less and less like opportunistic robbery.

At her hissed cue, Bruce trips and goes to his knees- but he drags Montoya with him, not allowing her arm to untangle from his. She curses inventively.

A club swings overhead, making her hair flutter.

Montoya goes still, registering that it came from an unexpected direction, and then her arm rips out of his and her hand flies into the suit jacket, retrieving not a gun (thank god) but a taser. She shoves him down with a distracted motion and the stillness of this little patch of street breaks open as the taser crackles to life. Someone howls breathlessly -apparently Freeze doesn't quite mask forty thousand volts, which is useful information- and then the three men behind them are on them, and another one is coming out from Belmont.

Montoya rolls to her feet. There's another howl, less enthusiastic, and then the smack of fist meeting flesh, and she grunts in evident pain. Bruce, holding on tightly to the yammering uselessness of Wayne, yelps, throws his arms over his head, and then while Montoya is busy returning a punch, rolls to snap out a kick that neatly dislocates the knee on the receiving end. The man who took it doesn't make a sound, though he does drop, since one leg is now bending sideways. Bruce's next kick knocks him out.

He takes a foot in the ribs, right over one of the healing holes in his side. The pain is immediate and galvanizing. Riding a high spike of anger, he gets an ankle in both hands, twists and heaves hard, sending a body flying overhead into the nearest building. Montoya is sandwiched between the remaining two, ducking and weaving like a boxer; he can see blood on her face. She's lost the taser. He rolls to his feet, ducks a pathetically telegraphed roundhouse, and drives a shoulder into a chest, yelping again, making sure to also launch into a trip so he doesn't look too competent.

He also makes sure to land elbows-first on nice soft struggling human abdomen, and then to slam the back of the man's head hard into concrete.

That's three.

When he rolls off the unconscious street thug, Montoya has accounted for the two that had her cornered, and her taser is back in her fist. She has a unit in her other hand and is talking into it, a rapid low patter full of code. Her hair is loose and a bit wild, and blood from her nose and split lower lip have streaked one side of her face. Her left eye is already starting to puff up.

"Not bad, Mr. Wayne," she says, breathless, adrenaline-shot, and more than suspicious now. "Something you maybe want to tell me?"

"Yes, I think I might throw up," he informs her, and drags himself to his knees, wondering if she's planning on tasering him (she certainly looks like she'd like to), wondering if he can manage to puke if that seems like it's really necessary. There's enough adrenaline in his blood to ride on for the rest of the night. Fighting without the suit is something he hasn't done in a while, and it's a whole different kind of high.

And if he needed any more evidence that Alfred has a point, there it fucking well is. _High_.

Oh- who the hell cares. He has much bigger problems right now.

Bruce bows his head and breathes in the gasping hitches of nausea for a minute on the off-chance that Montoya is buying any of it, then accepts her offered hand and rises heavily to his feet. "Wow," he warbles. "Wow. That was- I mean, and you - wow. Where do you get one of those things? Maybe I should carry one with me."

Montoya's expression suggests that the idea of Wayne with a taser may haunt her sleep for the next several nights. "They're not approved for civilians," she says shortly, then snaps something else into the radio unit and shoves it back into her jacket, along with the taser. "Are you all right? Uniforms are on the way here to collect these jackasses, Mr. Wayne, but it's going to take a few minutes: I'd like to immobilize and then escort you home, if you think you can walk the last few blocks. Unless you think you need a hospital. I really don't want us out here any longer."

"You don't want to wait here for help?" Wayne says incredulously. "You're _bleeding_, detective."

"So are _you_, Mr. Wayne," Montoya says, clipped and unforgiving.

He puts his hand up to his face, but she's staring at his shirt, which even in the dim light has grown a quarter-sized dark stain. The bullet hole in his side opened. _Fuck_.

He really, really should have worn black - but Alfred has always made such a point of keeping that color for one wardrobe only, and it always seemed like such a small thing to give on.

It's not that small right now.

"It's not that bad," he offers, and goddammit, he can _hear_ Wayne sliding out of his grip again. "One of them kicked me."

"Oh? Was that one wearing steel-toe stilettos?"

Montoya bends stiffly, pulling a handful of plastic zip-tie cuffs from within her jacket, which is apparently almost as packed full of fun as his belt. She secures their would-be attackers with quick, practiced movements, breathing a little hard - she's going to have bruises under her shirt too, after tonight. Bruce is silent, mind racing through possible explanations and coming up with nothing that fits with Wayne's brand of stupidity and carelessness. His overworked brain, grasping at straws, reverts back to _fifteen_ and _stupid_ and _friend_, that limping patchwork of long-ago Bruce and now-Bruce that Tom Elliot seemed to accept as real, or at least real enough.

It's going to have to do, since he has no time to come up with something better.

When Montoya straightens with a soft, swallowed grunt of pain, he meets her eyes, shoves his hands back in his pockets, blows out a breath. He can fling himself off skyscrapers and stand still for bullets without feeling much but the adrenaline rush, but this risk is so big, this territory so uncharted, that he doesn't actually need to fake the roughness in his voice.

"Alfred found me some tutors in self-defense when I was a kid, after…" he flings a glance back toward Crime Alley, hunches his shoulders. "I wasn't that great at it, but I kept up with it until college."

This is, in fact, verifiable, if she wants to take it that far. He suspects that she will want to.

Montoya stills, staring into his face. Her gaze is hard and mistrustful, but she does him the favor of staying silent while he fumbles for something else to add, something that will make this messy state of half-truth believable to a detective who has just seen spoiled, idiotic Bruce Wayne take out three armed street thugs, however clumsily.

He lets some -maybe too much- of Wayne bleed out of his eyes, and just stares back.

"Let's go, Mr. Wayne: I don't like our odds out here."

Montoya starts walking. He can hear the sound of an approaching engine; the uniforms should be here any moment. She has her gun out now, pressed discreetly to her thigh, and her eyes are all for the shadows at every street junction and alley. When the well-lit lobby doors of the Grand appear on their right she takes a deeper breath and pushes the door open for him, then leads the way into the elevator, gun still out but hidden in a pocket. The doorman takes in their bloodied faces and rises, alarmed, but Bruce waves him away before the elevator doors close.

"I shouldn't have brought you down that way," Montoya says, after a moment of uncomfortable silence in which Bruce imagines all the ways she could be interpreting the events of the last few minutes, all the ways she could arrive at the cowl from here, all the things that could have gone and probably are going wrong. Reverting to Wayne right now would be little more than an invitation for her to look more closely into his life: she's not stupid. And yet holding this new and unsettling line between truth and fiction is making his pulse pound and his thoughts scatter, though there's no particularly good reason for that.

"Why, is it a regular hangout for robbers or something? You couldn't have known, detective."

Montoya sends him a single glance that says eloquently how close she is to tipping him into the suspect list that has a permanent home in the frontal lobes of all cops. "Not exactly what I meant, Mr. Wayne."

He mulls a response while he slides a hand under his shirt and inspects the damage from that one kick. It's not bad, thank christ; a gap in the healing line of scar tissue, tender and bruising, not much blood. And it was the bullet hole instead of the knife wound, a piece of real luck, since she has seen the latter but not the former. Alfred's two-months-old insistence on fencing lessons as an alibi is about to come in very handy.

He rubs his fingers together; they slide with blood. "I've gone there before," he says, and smiles grimly at the understatement. "I've even seen plays there. I try not to live in the past."

He has no idea right now if he's lying or not.

This is _terrifying_.

Montoya's gaze is traveling rapidly from his face to his shoulders to his hands, reading body language. Assessing. "Still, it's got to be disturbing, being attacked on the same street where you lost your parents. I'm sorry."

This statement is somewhere between real sympathy and a push for a reaction, and it's made a hundred times worse by the fact that she's not wrong; he is rattled, for a number of reasons. The cold, logical part of his mind that is still working out alibis, motivations, and next moves tells him this is good; he can use this. The less reasoning parts shrink from the notion in furious disgust, but they're just going to have to shut up and deal.

"You should have mentioned the self-defense classes, Mr. Wayne," Montoya says severely.

"And have the press drag the story back out for another run of _Prince of Gotham haunted by tragic childhood_?" he says. He doesn't need to work for the bitterness into his voice or his face, it's too real, more real than he expected it to be, and he can't do anything with that but run with it. "I don't think so."

Bruce leaves the elevator ahead of her, pauses when her grip locks on his forearm, hard- angry. The urge to punch her is instant and breathtaking. Bruce freezes, thrumming with tension. He doesn't turn to look at her: he can't.

"Neither I nor any detective I work with will be leaking anything about you to the press unless there's a chance it will flush out the person or persons _threatening your life_, Mr. Wayne, so do me a favor and stop treating us like your hired help. You might want to try a little more truth while you're at it."

Montoya is truly pissed off. _This_ is interesting.

_Not wise_, his brain yells, but he meets her eyes anyway, tempering his own gaze because it is anything but Wayne right now, and raises a brow. "Quid pro quo, detective Montoya. Unless you expect me to believe investigating Wayne Enterprises is just tying up loose ends."

She folds her arms. Her eye is really starting to swell now; she'd probably be much pleasanter with some ice and a handful of aspirin. "And you don't take much of an interest in running that, huh?"

"I have a controlling interest and I don't want it focused on weapons manufacturing, but other than that, no, I leave it to wiser heads than mine."

"How about drugs? You want it focused on them?"

A_ha_. "Are we talking pharmacological or recreational?" he asks. Montoya grins, an expression with rather a lot of teeth, and shakes her head.

"Those are some pretty big words for a guy who has made a public career out of being rich and dumb. Mr. Wayne, you are one hell of an actor. You'll forgive me if this doesn't exactly make me less suspicious."

"As I'm sure you'll forgive me if I don't care," he says simply, and then Alfred clears his throat loudly, and they both twitch.

"I take it the evening went differently than planned sir," Alfred says, with all the droll gravity of a man dealing with dueling toddlers. Montoya snorts, then winces. "Detective Montoya's partner has called, and suggests that she remain here for the duration of the night, such as it is, unless medical attention is required. I've taken the liberty of making up the second guest bedroom."

Montoya slumps. "Fine," she grits, and stalks past both of them into the penthouse, hesitating at the fresh tea tray and first aid kit spread out on the coffee table. She takes a breath. "Thank you, Mr. Pennyworth."

"Alfred, detective," Alfred says soberly. "My father was Mr. Pennyworth. And I thank you, for keeping master Wayne safe this evening. I regret that it's not been an easy task. It seldom is. I see your fencing injury has taken something of a beating, sir, shall I call for a doctor?"

Bruce leans against the threshold, watching Alfred charm Montoya into sitting down and holding still for an ice pack, watching Montoya absorb that fencing comment and decide to believe it because it's Alfred, elegant, calm, kind Alfred, who has always grounded Wayne's bigger-and-dumber-than-life falsehoods in something resembling reality. "It's only a little bruised, Alfred; I can take care of it. I really ought to get out of these clothes."

"I'm sure you'd be much more comfortable that way, sir, yes," Alfred says, dry and merciless, and goddammit, of fucking _course_ Alfred didn't miss the mess he was in before he even left the club. Horrifyingly, he feels his whole face go hot. He stalks off to his bedroom with Montoya's snicker burning his ears, and decides he's going to be rude in the same way a second time and take a shower.

He's too wired to sleep afterward, and Alfred had laid out actual pajamas and a robe, which is a pretty clear message that Alfred thinks some damage control is in order: so he emerges, wet-haired and clean, in time to hear Alfred say something about boys being boys.

"I hope you're not talking about me," he says, and gets two irritated looks for his efforts.

"My nephew," Montoya says. "He's much more interesting."

"Ouch." Bruce squints at her face, which is swollen and darkening around her left cheekbone and temple. She was lucky. She's probably not going to feel that way tomorrow, though. "Literally ouch. Are you sure you don't need a hospital, detective?"

"I've had worse, thanks." She rubs the bandage Alfred has spread over her scraped knuckles and utters a sigh. Alfred pointedly spoons a drizzle of honey into the teacup across from her, and rises with a double handful of bloodied gauze and disinfectant.

"Allow him to eat one entire tray, and you'll never hear of it again," Alfred promises, making Bruce remember a pile of cupcakes, an afternoon of sugar-saturated insanity, and about twenty hours of pure digestive misery immediately afterward.

"You- wait, you did that to _me_, Alfred. I was sick for two days. Don't do that," he tells Montoya.

"And it worked, sir. You never ate more than one sweet at a sitting again, so far as I can recall. Though I'm afraid tonight you may have broken that streak, metaphorically speaking."

Silenced and (god damn him) a little flushed again, Bruce watches Alfred sweep out of the room.

"So, he basically raised you," Montoya says, and Bruce looks over at her. She looks exhausted, and wide awake. He nods, wary of traps, still not certain of the ground he's standing on.

"No basically about it. He became my legal guardian, after my parents were killed."

"Seems like a good guy," Montoya grunts, and puts both booted feet up on the coffee table in unapologetic rudeness, sipping her tea with a sigh. "No offense, Mr. Wayne, but there is no way in hell I am sleeping in that bed tonight; I've heard too many reports of the people you've put in it before me. I'll just stick around out here until my partner comes to relieve me. Don't feel like you have to keep me company."

"You can't possibly be worried I'm going to seduce you," Bruce says dryly, and actually earns a genuine laugh.

"I'd like to see you try. And no, I'm really not, though if you think I'm dumb enough to believe you only pinch hit for one team, you weren't listening to me out there."

"I was listening," he says lightly.

"_Were_ you now."

He has her attention again. He finds he's not entirely sure what to do with it. Wayne would irritate her to distraction with bad flirting and pompous stupidity; the Bat would just glower from the safety of a cowl that hides most of his expression and then leap off the side of a building. It's strange and disorienting and new, being neither; it makes him want to curl in some, find a more defensive posture. He's spent so long working on Wayne's expressions, the Bat's nonexpressions, that he never gave a single thought to what face to wear if neither of them applied.

There's what he is with Alfred and Lucius, but that's not at all an option here. That's something utterly outside the mental compartments he's created for his day and night lives, and it's too much of a key to hand to a smart woman like Montoya.

_Fifteen and stupid and friend_, he thinks again, pulse doing an irritating little flutter in his throat, and wonders how the hell he's going to manage this. He is probably going to have to drop Rugetti and devote some serious time to getting this assassin thing sorted out. He can hardly spend the next indefinite-amount-of-time trying to fumble his way back to the person he was in the awkward handful of years between having recovered most of himself from the trauma, and having landed on the (clumsy, as-yet unrefined) solution to preventing it from happening to anyone ever again. He'd thought revenge was an acceptable motive, back then. He'd thought violence was most effectively countered with violence. He'd also thought that absolutes were the natural end-points of decisions, that heroes were always good guys, that the good guys always won, and that girls were basically a different species.

He's not at all sure he wants to relive all of this. Any of this. He's just not sure how to be believable if he _doesn't_.

"Were you?" he tosses back, a bit late, still thinking hard. Montoya gives him a cool smile, the effect of which is somewhat marred by her bruised face and split lip, and brings her feet down so she can lean elbows on knees and be that much more in his face.

"You're smarter than you let on, Mr. Wayne, tougher than you let on -which granted is not saying much- and you are definitely more serious than you let on. I'd wonder why, but you're in the public eye a hell of a lot more than I am and I believe you about not wanting your parent's murders dragged into the spotlight every time you show your face. I wouldn't either, in your shoes. What I _don't _believe," she adds, as he's opening his mouth to say christ only knows what, "is that you have no idea at all where these hits on you are originating from. And Mr. Wayne, you can bet your whole ridiculously gigantic fortune that I will find out what it is you're not telling me."

Bruce smiles, feeling far more at home now that the fists are back out. "You think I put a hit out on myself? Seriously. Come on, you don't think that."

"No, I don't think that. If you were making more PR hay out of it, I might, but you're not and I don't." Montoya sips at her tea again, and picks up the ice pack to press it against her face. "I do, however, occasionally entertain the thought that you're covering for whoever did."

Honesty, from a detective mid-investigation. Amazing.

"I don't want to die, detective Montoya," Bruce says mildly - then thinks of Alfred's accusing face, his tired eyes, his suggestion that going out into the dark night after night was less about justice and more about death, and he shivers, then reaches for the remote. "But I guess you'll have to figure that one out for yourself. Since it doesn't look like either one of us is getting any sleep tonight, how do you feel about Coen Brothers films?"

"The darker the better," Montoya says firmly, and plants her boots back on the coffee table.

At least she has good taste.


	18. Chapter 18

**Yet another note, meaning I thought this might be warning-worthy. Nothing awful, but a fairly graphic description of a homicide scene so, er... there you go, I guess. :)**

* * *

The new variant of Freeze is resistant to Lucius' antidote.

Gotham's streets in the hours beyond dusk are becoming an obstacle course of strung-out junkies trying to steal enough for the next fix, mob enforcers collecting on debts in cash or flesh, and people of all stripes flying high, undeterred by pain and largely unmoved by fear, unable to tell when they've taken more damage than their bodies can handle.

Gordon has ordered a permanent police presence in every emergency room, a move that kicked up a storm of outrage, some from doctors worried that people injured doing something illegal will be less likely to seek medical attention (a fairly legitimate argument, in fact), most from those who have done or are planning to do something that might land them in one of Gotham's ERs.

Press conferences with the new commissioner show a man braced as though against a strong wind, neat in appearance and quick and calm in his answers, but clearly losing ground.

Batman has been involved in more disorderlies and simple assaults in the last two hours than he's stuck his long graphite nose into in the previous two years, mostly because this kind of messy night requires him to be on the ground, and while he's there it seems more than petty to ignore the less deadly forms of crime happening around him.

"Aw, _dude_," the man flattened out at his feet moans, his clutching fingers and breathless groans making it pretty clear he's not on Freeze. Low-denomination bills and broken beer bottles are scattered around him like bloodspatter. "What the _fuck_, man, ain't you got nothing better to do? _Shit_."

"Better find a new hobby," Batman grates, and leaves him cuffed to a bike stand as a shaken convenience store clerk wobbles out to collect the bills before they drift off. A trail of interrupted domestic abusers, would-be thieves, and one jackass who had the temerity to kick a stray dog are left broken and bleeding in in his wake, and seriously, somebody here does need to find a new hobby, but it might not be the guy chained to the bike stand. Another night of this and the Bat is going to be about as terrifying as Smoky the Bear.

If anybody asks him to rescue a cat, he's going to blow something up just on general principle.

There hasn't been a single lead on Hush, and he's beginning to feel like he's just circling, looking for a place to land. He is more than a little relieved when a buzz in his ear heralds Alfred's voice.

"Eleventh and Dolrado, sir. "

"Got it," he says. It's a relief to be in the air.

It's less of a relief when he arrives.

From his perch two rooftops away he can see the coroner's van idling next to half a dozen cars, the cluster of uniforms and plainclothes scattered in clumps on the sidewalk and in the lobby; the signs of a major scene. It's a tenement building, teetering on the edge of the Narrows, just barely outside the zone where the crime rate really starts to spike. It looks like it saw its best days somewhere in the sixties; now it is scraped concrete and sliding glass patched by duct tape, rickety balconies, iron cages over anything on the first three floors that even begins to resemble a way in. Several of its inhabitants are huddled on the street, waiting to be allowed back into their apartments.

"Tenth floor west," Alfred relays, before he gets annoyed enough ask. "I am to mention specifically that it is not yet clear, sir. And I believe I'll send Commissioner Gordon a bottle of good champagne."

Only Gordon would worry enough in the middle of what, judging by the number of cops its attracted, has to be a complicated homicide scene to add that last bit.

He doesn't acknowledge Alfred's last snide remark; just leaps for the nearest fire escape and hauls himself via those to One Eleventh and Dolrado. Buildings from this era have staggered concrete blocks - the idea at the time was probably some kind of visual appeal that's long since disappeared in the grime and wear of years, but it does make for convenient handholds. He hangs, listening with electronics, until he hears Gordon's voice right outside the window.

"Okay, get Jakes and Wertstein on it, I want searches of both those buildings. And tell Crime Scene to start with the steps and the lobby and work their way up here: there are people down there who need to get back into their homes."

"Yeah," rumbles a familiar voice: Bullock. "Arright, you heard the boss, clear the room for the techs and get down to Fisher for assignment!"

Over the careful tiptoeing that is the walk of a detective at a crime scene he can hear Gordon pacing, which means this is not only a homicide, but an ugly one. He grips the stone edge of the windowframe and pushes.

"You want me outta here too?" Bullock says, and then huffs a startled curse as Batman swings into the room and shuts the window. "Mother_fuck_er- can't you just come in the door like a person?"

Batman has a pithy reply ready to go, because something about Bullock's overuse of _motherfucker _as a greeting seems worthy of it, but when he sees the bodies splayed out beyond the detective's bulk the words fly out of his head.

_Did a better job with the casting this time_, he thinks numbly.

The noses and chins, two things that cannot be altered without surgery or plastics that don't sit well on cooling flesh, are not quite right. Other than that it is Thomas and Martha Wayne right down to the rings on their fingers, his perfect bow tie, her satin pumps, the pattern of bloodspatter. The postures are so flawless an echo that he has to fight the impulse to kneel beside the body of the man, hear that final command, watch the light go out.

_Bruce. Don't be afraid._

For a few seconds he is struck mute and motionless, blood roaring in his ears, breath held, watching the world end all over again.

The monogrammed handkerchief folded into his breast pocket. The pearls in her fist.

He is vaguely aware that Bullock is still speaking. Gordon holds up a hand for silence, waves Bullock out of the room, watches him leave.

"Tennant downstairs called it in," Gordon says, muted, like he's afraid to wake them. Or to tip the lunatic in the weaponized suit standing next to him over the edge. "Somebody left the water on in the kitchen, presumably so we'd find this sooner rather than later."

Bruce shifts a foot, flexes a hand, just to prove that he can. "How long," he rasps, willing his feet to move forward, his lungs to start working, his stupid, slow mind away from past and toward present. It's like swimming through cotton.

"We won't know for sure until the autopsies, but the ME is putting it between seven and eleven this morning."

"Cause of death." The bullet holes are there, right where they're supposed to be. But there's not enough blood and tissue damage for them to be pre-mortem.

Gordon points wordlessly to the kitchen table, which is a lonely half-circle of coffee-stained formica on the empty side of a tiny kitchen. Water has buckled the linoleum, stained the dingy beige carpet that ends at the edge of the living room. There is a pair of vials there, clearly meant to be found. "It looks like the same stuff from the last murders," Gordon is saying. "The skin and muscle degeneration, the eye color, all the same. Even used the same types of hair and skin dye, we think. Sick bastard. Who the hell does this kind of thing? It's clear there was no struggle. And… dammit. Look -are you all right?"

Gordon does this occasionally, delivers short monologues of information peppered with frustration; he can't quite seem to help himself, when the scene is unsettling enough. This is slightly closer to babbling, which is rare, and worrying. Bruce only hears the question at the end, which doesn't appear to be rhetorical, after replaying it twice in his head while he's running ultraviolet scans over the vials. It's another half a minute before he registers that he's expected to answer.

He turns, meets Gordon's eyes with nothing at all but the Bat in his own; he can only manage this by tipping his head so the bodies at his feet aren't visible.

Gordon acknowledges the glower with an unfazed tip of the head toward what appears to be a bedroom. "I ask because what's in there is worse, and it's… well, it's clearly meant for you."

The scene _here _is clearly meant for him. Though Gordon couldn't possibly know that.

He looks at Gordon for another moment and realizes, astonishment breaking through the cotton batting of shock that he's still trying to clear from his head, that Gordon is almost as close to the edge as he is.

He stalks across the crime scene, twisting around tape-marked evidence, noting bullet holes in the outer bathroom wall as he passes; they were shot propped up there. That can wait.

He pauses outside the room, taking a breath, letting it out. If anybody but Gordon were in here he wouldn't allow himself that much, but he's crouched over too many of the leavings of Gotham's deadliest animals next to this man- this man who sees guilt and curiosity and frustration in tiny cues he doesn't even know he's providing, who guessed from god only knows what that he takes his coffee black. Who thinks whatever's beyond that door is worth a warning, even to the Bat.

He pushes inside.

It's worse, and for the same reason that the scene out here is worse than Gordon knows.

The body in the middle of the room is upright in a high-backed chair that does not belong in this room or this part of the city; though charred and peeled by fire, it looks elegant and heavy, like it should be under a long, polished mahogany table in an ornate room. The woman occupying it sits with legs casually crossed, shoulders back, arms folded; it would seem like confidence, were she alive. Her head is tipped sideways at a cocksure angle. Her hair is long and deep brown and loose around her shoulders, and there is a worn leather briefcase at her feet, leaning against one motionless ankle.

A familiar briefcase.

His hands are curling and uncurling. He can't stop that, he can't even try, because he is fairly certain it's the only thing keeping him from driving both fists through the cheap drywall; from flinging himself forward in fifty eight pounds of titanium and kevlar, making as thorough a wreckage of this room as a hand grenade. From giving voice to the thing that is clawing at the back of his breastbone and knotting itself tightly into his throat.

That elegant posture is held in place by clear fishwire and hooks; that hair was cut recently to this specific shape; those faint wry lines at the corners of her eyes were not drawn by life and laughter but by pencil. This is nothing but the most gruesome sort of art a human mind can conjure and nonetheless- god, oh god, it looks so much like her it sucks the breath right out of his lungs.

The charred chair she sits on is from Wayne Manor. It belonged at _his _mahogany table, before he burned it down along with everything else.

It isn't her. It isn't her because there was nothing left of her; the casket was closed because there was nothing left of her; the blast left him only her memory and the scattered traces of DNA that confirmed once and for all that she wasn't coming back, that no miracle was going to happen. It isn't her because even she, stubborn girl, headstrong woman, crazy idealist and insanely brave crusader and tireless advocate, wise, witty, fiercely loyal friend, unflinching moral compass and blazing hope and endless mystery that she was, even she can only die once.

Bruce leans on the doorframe. The cowl is strangling him. The suit is a cage. The room is too small, the air is too warm, her image too perfect. The burned chair is an accusation, the symbol scrawled above her and all over the walls in bitter charcoal is an accusation, her fixed and lightless gaze is an accusation. That briefcase, oh christ.

It's not her.

The girl who looks like Rachel looks at him, her eyes flat with death, her smile held in place by god only knows what. Clear wire radiates out from her to the ceiling, the walls, the furniture and the floor, holding her in place in spite of the rigor that must surely have started. The effect is arachnoid and awful, but not as awful as the bat scratched around her like an invitation or a brand, nor the meticulous cruelty that made her into a doll for this dreadful puppet show. Not nearly as awful as the face she has been made to echo.

Keeping himself still, silent, is enough work to leave him winded. He fights to breathe against the restriction of the cowl, fists pressing against the doorframe, heart hammering in his ears. The hand that lands on his shoulder shocks a sound out of him, something less growl and more gasp. He actually forgot Gordon was in the room.

"Breathe, son. Take a breath. Just give it a minute. I've got a thermos, you want coffee?"

Bruce shakes his head, not trusting that his voice won't come out raw and human. He is trembling all over; Gordon can surely feel that even through layers of kevlar and titanium plate. Gordon doesn't look away, though this cannot be easy for him, for the same reasons it would not be easy for the Bat even if there were no childhood memory, no lifelong friendship, no promise of more weighing this moment down into something as close to unendurable as he has ever known.

Guilt is a common ground neither one of them has ever needed to acknowledge they stood upon.

"Son," Gordon says gently. "It's go-"

"_Don't_," Bruce husks, halting that far-too-familiar phrase before it can rip him right in half. The word comes out roughened and broken in the middle, and it doesn't sound at all like the Bat, but it also doesn't sound like him, so it will have to do. "Gordon," he adds quietly, more deliberately. "Don't."

For several seconds Gordon remains where he is, hand pressed to his armored shoulder, looking warily sideways at the cowl -it makes Bruce feel like one of his rookies, he is notorious for shepherding them through their first scenes - then he nods once, and backs off.

Bruce glares at the scuffed, dented toes of his reinforced boots and breathes, slow, rhythmic, controlled and careful, until his body stops trying to run away, stops trying to process this experience as a direct threat.

"We haven't had anybody in there yet," Gordon is saying, voice deliberately light. Gordon unscrews his beaten old steel thermos and sips, grimaces. "I barely know how I'm going to get the techs in. But it sure the hell looks like a calling card if ever I've seen one. And an invitation to you, I'm sorry to say. I don't suppose you have some idea who might be behind it."

"Just the name," Bruce rasps.

"Hush. Yes. We're not finding a lot on that so far."

"Street name," Bruce says, though that much is pretty obvious. "Linked to Freeze. Hit Rugetti's men harder; they're working for him. I'll be digging in other directions."

"Wayne," Gordon surmises- thank fuck he's already overloaded on shock tonight or this would knock him right over backwards. But the split second of horror that hangs between hearing that and answering to it is enough for him to realize that Gordon is talking about the other case they're working on, which is inextricably linked to this one. He swallows once, nods grudgingly. Because these cases are more than linked; they are the _same_ case, though there is no way to tell Gordon this without telling him everything.

Apparently he should have been paying more attention all along to the small, annoying assassination thing Gordon asked him to look into.

Two attempts on Wayne's life, two carefully detailed copycat murders, and this - this monstrosity behind him. The Freeze, flooding the streets just when he might have bent his attention on the first hit; the chemical connection to Klein, which is owned by Wayne Enterprises. International assassins and massive drug thefts and a neurotoxin with the potential for a far wider and deadlier application. All of it pointing the Bat at Wayne, and then pointing Wayne at the Bat, stringing the GCPD between them like dots just waiting to be connected.

Somebody knows exactly how and where to hit him.

Somebody knows _him_. Somebody knows him far too well.

He is beginning to see the pattern, and it's big and subtle and very personal indeed. He nods, unable to meet Gordon's eyes or to look at either crime scene; all three of these things are deeply intrusive in different ways, and he may have nearly sixty pounds of armor shielding his body, but it doesn't feel like he's got any left right now for his mind.

His nightmares are splashed all over this apartment. They will be photographed and picked apart by a hundred GCPD techs and detectives and criminal profilers. They will be headlining papers.

"I'll talk to Wayne in the morning, hopefully before this thing hits the news cycle," Gordon offers, not oblivious to how hard the Bat is working to put himself back together but, bless him, doing a wonderful job of pretending to be. "This… these are enough to put him at the top of the suspect list, for obvious reasons. And we haven't yet gotten too deep into his finances -it's like trying to spoon the water out of the damn ocean - but Montoya and Bullock are convinced it's not him. They're thinking it's somebody close to him. Right now, I tend to agree. But I need to get a better read on him. Maybe he can point us in a new direction."

This is… unexpectedly awkward.

Gordon jerks his head beyond Bruce to the room. "I hear she was a friend of his. And whoever did this is working off photographs from the case files. Considering the time the original murders happened, that really doesn't narrow it down much, but it gives us a place to start."

Yes. Yes it does.

He hasn't been thinking at all. He has been such an _idiot_.

Being furious with himself has the benefit of clearing his head. Bruce sucks in a breath, fights with the sudden feeling that he might throw up, battles that down, and then makes himself look back at - that. This second examination is just as painful, but he knows to expect it now, so it's a little more effective.

"Don't send your techs in yet," he rasps, and points at the small sliver of metal just barely visible under the window sill. There is a stretch of colorless wire running from it to one delicately posed arm. A touch on almost any other wire in this room would be enough. "Pressure-triggered mine," he says, and holds his position until Gordon follows the line of his arm, sees it too. "Already depressed. Movement will be the trigger. You need a bomb squad."

And apparently he needs to study bomb dismantling tactics. Goddammit, why did he never think he'd need that?

"Jesus," Gordon breathes. "Jesus. You- thanks. Thank you."

"You don't-"

"Oh yeah I do. Not one of us saw that. I was going to just send them in here like… jesus. You can just shut up and say _you're welcome_ this time."

Gordon's mouth is turned up just slightly on one side when he darts a glance that way. But Gordon's eyes, lingering on the strung, painted remains of a girl that probably resembled Rachel a little living and mimics her with horrible precision dead, are haunted and guilt-ridden.

Bruce blows out a breath, aching and angry and warmed all the same.

"I'll be in touch," he rasps, because _you're welcome_, like _thank you_, is something for other people. He picks his way back to the window to launch off into the dark.


	19. Chapter 19

For the rest of the night, he lets the city take him where it will.

The Narrows sweep him through a series of gang hits and gun fights; Red Row offers up two rapists and a pimp who uses his fists to keep his girls in line. In the business districts there are crimes of passion and coldbloodedness. The ERs have lines tonight that in some cases actually stretch out the automatic doors, people standing under fluorescents cradling broken limbs and staunching lacerations. He hovers over Gotham General for nearly an hour, gathering up the predators that come to cull their targets from this wounded herd, and he fills the ERs still farther with their groaning, cursing bodies. He follows incident reports all the way up Pelman to the skyscraper-studded north end, and hauls two kids whose fight over a video game has turned into a shootout off the Trudeau bridge. They nearly overbalance him; he drops them in a heap at the entrance to Park Memorial, leaves them bleeding from minor gunshot wounds and clinging to one another in breathless terror.

He is quivering with rage, bleeding it out onto everything he touches. People scream at the sight of him. He makes no sound, dropping down onto thieves and rapists and murderers and thugs swiftly and silently, leaving a moil of fear and pain in his wake. He doesn't think, only moves faster, hits harder, when it seems like thought might catch up with him. There is no peace in the snap of the wind in his cape tonight, and he spreads that solaceless fury everywhere his shadow falls.

When the smog-hazed eastern skies begin to gray with the coming dawn he hauls himself up the grapple line to his balcony, so wrung out and muscle-fatigued he can barely pull his body over the railing.

Alfred is waiting for him, unruffled and steady, a fixed point in the darkness.

"You're cutting it close, sir."

Bruce rests for a moment against the balcony wall. The wind is picking up with the slow rise of the sun. Alfred's features are half-hidden by the fading remains of the night.

"Come inside," Alfred orders, and Bruce pulls in an unsteady breath, allows Alfred to lead him into the bedroom, to begin the process of removing his armor piece by piece when he makes no move to do so himself, so tired that merely standing still seems like a luxury. "You appear remarkably unharmed, considering the state of exhaustion you're in."

He doesn't turn from his work at the closet when Bruce makes a strangled noise of bitter disbelief, but he does go very still.

"It was another copycat," Bruce says, and Alfred's head sinks a little, almost a nod, not quite deliberate enough. "Better. More detail."

"Then we shall have to work that much harder to find this madman and bring him in, won't we?"

Bruce sits on the edge of his bed. He can barely move, now that he's let himself stop. Sleep flickers insistently in the corners of his eyes. It promises dreams, and he'd fight it off for another night if he didn't know how badly he is going to need his brain in working order tomorrow, when Gordon brings his questions and those crime scene photos to his door, and he has to see it all over again. He'll be seeing it anyway over the next few hours.

But now Alfred will have to see it too, and he never wanted to put Alfred through that.

"Gordon will be here tomorrow," he says, and Alfred finally turns. His expression is somehow simultaneously calm and fierce. "There was a second crime scene in the same location. Wayne Manor is going to be tied to this one. Possibly I am too," he is forced to add, because the chair may not be all the evidence they find that links back to Wayne. They both have to be prepared for that.

"This is aimed at you, sir, specifically at _you_. I assume you are aware of this."

"Tonight it was kind of hard to miss," Bruce says. The thing that has been chasing him for the latter half of this godawful night is coiled behind his breastbone again, all but choking him. "The second crime scene was Rachel."

Alfred draws an audible breath.

"But. Not really. Obviously. A copy, made to look like her. Clever, but. Not actually her."

He's not making a whole hell of a lot of sense right now. He is shivering in the cooling remnants of a hard sweat, it's difficult to breathe around the pain in his chest, and every flicker of dull dawn light sparking off a dust mote makes him think of fishwire and her terrible smile.

He has to do better than this. He has to be _angrier_ than this.

He can't find it. For the first time in his life, he can't find it. It's drowning in the memory of Rachel's laugh, Rachel's determined scowl, Rachel's amusement-crinkled eyes, Rachel's profanity-laced articulations of outrage. _His_ Rachel would never have sat so gracefully in that dining room chair or any other- she always slumped like a grad student in the middle of exams unless she was in court. And her smile was more crooked, less confident, the smile of a child of working parents earning a living among the wealthy. She tipped her head with less poise, more like a bird about to peck an eyeball out, and her hair didn't flow so easily, because she was constantly tucking it behind her ears even though she hated how young that made her look.

Rachel had been nothing like that elegant, awful marionette: she had been messy and contrary and occasionally frustrating as hell, a masterpiece of imperfections. Human.

Vibrantly, maddeningly, brilliantly, bravely human.

And right now she is filling all the empty spaces where rage lives, the ragged holes he acquired at eight and nursed over the years into reserves meant to last him through nights like this. She is under his skin, sliding along every nerve. He fumbles for _angry_ again, loses it again in the deafening silence of Rachel's memory- and it's just like her, christ, isn't it just like her to show up _now,_ like a rebuttal to Hush's argument and his own argument all at the same time. To drag him back into the name he keeps trying to remake, to make him remember that he's not made of titanium and kevlar and graphite but blood and bone and inescapable mortal frailty. Her closing statement on his life, delivered when there's no hope of changing her mind ever again.

She always did have to get the last word.

He might actually break in two now. It would be something of a relief.

"Alfred," Bruce tries to say, but it comes out _hnrgh_. Alfred glides closer, smoothly turns down the covers, pushes Bruce down until he's prone. One cool hand presses against the side of his head as if to hold him there, make him lay still.

"I don't care if he's bloody Michelangelo, sir, Rachel Dawes was more than any man could hope to capture in art or life."

It surprises a small, slightly wretched huff of laughter out of him. Alfred, another one holding onto him so he doesn't disappear into the monster he's built out of his own nightmares and Gotham's.

"I'm sorry for this, Alfred," Bruce murmurs, and that gentle, firm pressure grows for a moment, then vanishes. If he moves, if he breathes too deeply, he's going to crack like glass. He will just stay here, breath held, eyes shut, until the sun is all the way up. "I'm truly sorry for all of this."

Alfred makes an impatient sound that is both sorrow and irritation, and slides something out of one pocket, setting it firmly on the pillow in front of Bruce's nose. He eyes its dim contours without really needing to; the cool scratch and slide of stone tell him everything he needs to know. Rachel's arrowhead.

"Well I am _not_, master Wayne," Alfred says firmly, "and I don't think she would have been either."


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes: This one may have wandered a bit; I honestly can't tell. :)**

* * *

He wakes with the previous night's efforts etched into his muscles and Rachel's voice echoing in his ears.

Sunlight spears through a gap in the drapes as Alfred sets a tray on the table by the bed. Bruce squints and sees a giant mug of coffee next to what must be at least six aspirin sitting in a small, sad pile. He'd ignore them on general principle, but even without moving he already knows he's going to need them too badly for pride to play any part in his decision.

"Professional athletes retire before thirty," Alfred says serenely to the room in general, and pulls a pair of jeans, a tee shirt, and a robe out of the closet, laying them on the bed in a silent command to rise and a silent warning to look marginally surprised by company. "Commissioner Gordon is in the breakfast room, sir."

The breakfast room. Lovely.

"Thanks," Bruce murmurs. He holds his breath through the process of sitting up, which is easier than lifting his bike off a guardrail was the last time he crashed it, but only because he's not already wearing 60 pounds of extra weight. He hasn't felt this wrung out since his first year on the mountain, when Henri's diabolical combination of physical training and psychological flaying would leave him limp with exhaustion and so twisted around the roots of his motivations he had to work sometimes, to remember why he was there.

In hindsight it's painfully obvious, how hard Henri was working to separate him from basic human morality, how each carefully timed expedition into his subconscious was aimed at that delicate disentanglement.

And Rachel's words, Rachel's outrage and hurt, Rachel's dedication to saving as much of the world as she could wrap her hands around -the things that had sent him off into the world in search of a purpose in the first place- had often been all that kept him from following Henri wholeheartedly into that darkness.

Hush had known her in some way.

From a distance, maybe; not closely, but well enough to mimic her classy presented-to-the-world image with devastating accuracy. It was a mistake. If he wanted to get the attention of both Wayne and the Bat, he certainly has it now. Pulling on clothes and checking to make sure his hair looks as messy as the rest of him feels (it does, but it's still disturbingly shiny; definitely time to replace that stupid shampoo), he decides that Wayne would react to the crime scene photos Gordon is doubtless about to show him with real horror and fury, but not too much.

Then he remembers that Montoya will almost certainly have given her boss a full report on the events of the other night. He halts halfway out of the bedroom, because off all the people he cannot afford to play dumb with, Jim Gordon is right at the top of the list.

Alfred eyes him from across the living room, a tray bearing coffee and scones balanced in one hand, his eyes impatient, serious, and possibly just a tiny bit amused: Alfred had this figured the moment Gordon walked in. Bruce hovers for a distracted half second, then rubs his hair into a slightly smoother shape. He'll have to play it by ear.

He is really starting to _hate_ doing this.

"Commissioner," Wayne says foggily -it's habit, that tone, and calculation, and also maybe a little bit of wistful last-ditch hope he didn't know he was still capable of. It dies before he's even gotten a chance to offer the coffee Alfred's already serving: Gordon doesn't have to do much more than angle his head just slightly and nail him with a level, evaluating gaze to kill it dead. Uncooperative victims and hysterical eyewitnesses see this look; nervous gunmen and clumsy thieves see it. Jumpy rookies stomping all over crime scenes freeze in place like deer. Gordon's kids are probably on the receiving end of it pretty often. The Bat's even caught it one or two times, when a non-answer to a particularly urgent question hovered on the crumbling edge of Gordon's patience.

Getting hit with it in his own breakfast room after a bad night is like walking face-first into a really polite brick wall.

"Have a seat, Mr. Wayne," Gordon says, managing to make that sound a lot like a request, which it definitely is not. Bruce feels a momentary impulse to applaud: this is, after all, the man keeping up the other end of Gotham's fragile, spotty peace, and even he forgets on occasion that that gentle exterior covers a soul with enough iron in it to command the city's entire police force. He chose his first ally for a handful of reasons, not all of which were rational, but this is something he has learned about Gordon in the years since.

Bruce sits, carefully expressionless, and takes a tiny sip of coffee.

"Commissioner Gordon," he says. "What can I do for you?"

"Well, Mr. Wayne, I'm afraid we have some unpleasant things we need to discuss, but first I wanted to thank you for helping keep one of my best detectives out of the hospital the other night."

Classic opener for an interrogation. Gracious and positive and a little ominous, leaving plenty of room to either dissemble or dodge. A trap it would be easy to fall into. He doesn't even need the coffee anymore. He sets it down and crosses his legs, folds his arms. Fidgety but not aggressive, confident but not cocky. This is going to be fascinating.

"To be honest, Commissioner, she had it wrapped up," Bruce says. "I just tried not to get in her way."

"And yet I hear you took down at least two of your attackers yourself."

Bruce shrugs. It's nice, not having to stick to Wayne's smirks and faux frowns. That alone would make this conversation a dangerous one, but the fact that it's Gordon he's facing; Gordon, who can read the Bat's tight-jawed silences, who chose to do more than just take advantage of what a costumed vigilante with a penchant for property destruction was offering -who made himself a _partner_- well, this is probably as close as he's ever going to come to putting himself in someone else's hands. He ought to be as scattered as he was with Montoya, but instead his pulse has slowed to a cool 68 bpm, and for the first time in a few weeks it feels like his mind is finally working at normal speed.

Alfred slides delicately between, fills Gordon's cup again, sets a scone pointedly in front of him, and throws Bruce a look from behind Gordon's shoulder that reminds him how close he's been cutting it lately.

"Look," Bruce says, finding a line somewhere between his two alter egos and holding on like grim death. It's not _fifteen and stupid_, which would never fly with Gordon, but it's got more than a little of _friend_ in it, and he already knows if anything trips him up it's going to be that. This is like blitz chess on a minefield. "If you're about to ask me why I didn't mention earlier-"

"No, Mr. Wayne, that's actually pretty clear to me."

"Oh." Is it now. He takes another sip of coffee, just to shut himself up and think for a minute. "So you're not-"

"Upset that you withheld potentially relevant information about your past from us in spite of the seriousness of our current investigation?" Gordon gives a faint, wry smile. "If I let that sort of thing bother me, Mr. Wayne, I'd need to find a new line of work."

"Oh," Bruce says again, and bites the inside of his cheek against the impulse to grimace, because apparently some of the sounding-like-an-idiot was actually him after all. "Well. Great. I guess. So-"

"It would be nice in the future, though, if you'd try to be a little more up front with us."

"I... sure. I think I can do that."

"That's good." Gordon leans back, waves a hand in gracious invitation. Bruce swallows a smile, mirrors the posture, and pops a chunk of scone into his mouth. He might as well; he's definitely not going to want to eat when this interview is over with. "So, Mr. Wayne. Can you think of anybody in your life who might want you dead?"

Bruce snorts, not exactly a graceful act with a mouthful of crumbling blueberry scone. "I have more money than Bill Gates. It tends to attract a certain unsavory element."

"Makes sense. Also you've invested heavily in-" he glances at the folder in front of him, though he clearly doesn't need to. "Biofuel, a feeless public transportation system, a zero-footprint architecture firm, a company that uses legal loopholes to reclaim property for bankrupt homeowners, privately funded urgent care centers, and a machine called Z-Test, that does something too technical, quite frankly, for me to understand from the description."

Oh yes, they've done their research. He'd expect no less from this particular group. He can't help feeling a little bit exposed, though; many of those are his own pet passions, and they weren't exactly hiding in plain sight.

"It clones human blood by type. If it ever gets to development, that is. There are some problems with the - well, I doubt you're interested in the details."

"You might be surprised, but no, it's not why I'm sitting in your breakfast room. My point is, you've probably made a few enemies."

"On my own board, even," Bruce says wryly. "These aren't exactly high profit margin endeavors."

"And yet you don't make any of these investments public," Gordon says. "Can I ask why?"

"When I make so many of my other charitable efforts so public, you mean?" This isn't exactly the direction he thought this discussion was going to go- but it's a viable choice for an investigation of a death threat. It's also, he is very aware, a viable choice for a detective that suspects she hasn't gotten anywhere near the whole story. Montoya's spent some late nights on this. "Sometimes the press spotlight is exactly what a cause needs. Sometimes all it does is disrupt a process that needs time to..." he waves a hand vaguely, catches his coffee cup and picks it up. "Percolate."

"And what does Wayne Enterprises expect to gain from these causes?"

"Right now, nothing but the tax write-off. One day, hopefully soon, it can expect to be part of helping to make a better Gotham. And some of these will eventually turn a profit." Bruce sips out of habit, then puts the cup down; it's cold. "Somehow I don't think the futures market is why you're here, though. And I can't think of anybody who would hire a bunch of professional hit men to take me out. Why do you think this is someone I know?"

He's expecting a typical cop non-answer with a redirection hard on its heels, because he has no doubt Montoya and Bullock dug a hell of a lot deeper than that. Klein should be the next item to come out. But instead Gordon leans back, eyes shadowing, and nudges the folder on the table.

"We've been working on a series of murders that we believe may be linked to your situation, Mr. Wayne."

"Murders." Bruce sits up a little straighter. His stomach clenches around the memory of last night: stupid, mindless reflex, distracting, irritating- probably handy, though the idea of using any of Hush's campaign to get into his head as fuel for this performance makes him want to hit the table until it breaks. "You mean murders by the same people who - but how can you know that if you don't even know who's after me? How are they linked to _me_?"

"I'd like you to take a look at some photographs of the crime scenes. Would you be willing to do that? I think it will become apparent why we think there's a connection. I'm hoping you may be able to help me find it." Gordon meets his eyes, still assessing, still wary, but also sympathetic now. "This might be difficult."

"How bad are they? I haven't read anything about this in the papers. Alfred, uh, hold off on breakfast," he calls, as though Alfred were in the kitchen preparing a feast. "Unless you wanted some, that is."

"Not really." Gordon slides the folder across the table toward him. "Take a look, please."

Everything up until this point has been relatively simple, but he doesn't know if he can fake the kind of things that need to be on his face over the next few minutes. It's too crucial that Gordon believe him, and it's too far from his usual kind of performance; Wayne isn't exactly a layered personality.

So Bruce flips the folder open to the first shot, which is close-up of the scene at Cicero and Fifth, and lets the roil in the pit of his stomach find its way to his expression.

It's such an unfamiliar act, so unpracticed after long years spent learning to do exactly the opposite, that the experience is by itself enough to throw his breathing off. He stares, taking in the spark of the flash on their dull open eyes, the slumped shadows of crime scene investigators that it has thrown upon the wall, the obviously arranged but somehow no less poignant reach of the man's arm toward the woman. The deliberateness of it, the careful mimicry, just as infuriating and terrible as it was the first time: but this time he doesn't allow himself to shunt that reaction aside in favor of reason.

He'd all but forgotten what it felt like, to let his thought processes be wrenched utterly sideways by an emotional response. It's visceral and more than a little appalling. Hard to believe there was ever a point in his life where this was normal. His pulse is all over the place. He can feel the blood draining out of the secondary vessels in his head and hands, rushing to the center, his body reacting as though to a major injury, and it_feels_ like one; christ, it feels worse, in some ways.

Thomas and Martha Wayne are in portraits all over this house. They are immortalized in marble and paint; their names are on monuments and buildings from one end of Gotham to the other. And Hush used murder as his medium to recreate their final moments, as though none of what they accomplished, none of what they felt or thought, none of what they _were_, had any significance compared to how they died. It doesn't matter what this ugly, deadly game is intended to do to him: what it's done to his parents is unforgivable.

That's probably enough.

He clears his throat, working to find reason again, to layer it over the coals sitting in the pit of his stomach. "What the _fuck_," he says. His voice is shaking.

"You recognize the scene this is intended to imitate, then."

He transfers his gaze to Gordon's, holds it. Gordon holds it right back, and straightens up just a tiny bit in his chair, like a dog catching a scent. This is getting dangerous. And he doesn't know for sure what he's got on his face anymore, in his eyes; Gordon's good enough that he can't see whether he's taken this too far or not far enough. Outrage and plain rage seem like reasonable emotional responses for anybody when confronted with something like this, but he knows his notion of a reasonable emotional response is probably not on par with the rest of the world's, and maybe never was. There's no map for this moment but Gordon, and Gordon's too good a cop to give him a clear route out.

"Who did this? Who are these people? Where did this happen?"

Gordon makes a small gesture toward the folder. Bruce draws a breath and glares at it, then at Gordon, then back at the folder.

"Please," Gordon says. "I regret having to put you through this, but I need you to look carefully at the rest of them."

"Hell," Bruce snarls, and pulls a slim stack of glossy photos out, fanning them messily across the white linen of the tablecloth. They are bad, as he knew they would be. Somehow the process of rendering victims into flat light and color on paper underscores the bald violence of the act that put them there; he's always found this to be true. He scans the scenes -handkerchief, shoes, purse, pearls- and allows his hands to curl into fists. "This is- I don't understand why anyone would do this. This is _sick_."

Gordon pushes the photographs out so that they line up; he has to lean across the table to do this, and Bruce catches the scent of coffee and stale cigarettes and a lot of sleepless nights. Rachel's scene is caught in only one image. Gordon wouldn't make either of them look at it in any more detail than he absolutely had to. Bruce slides it apart from the rest of them, staring, motionless, at the evidence of failure.

"That's not Rachel. She was k- goddammit. It's _not her_."

"No, Mr. Wayne. It's not her. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make this woman look like Ms. Dawes. And to make these other people look like your parents. Do you need a minute?"

Wayne probably would.

He runs his hands through his hair, avoiding Gordon's gentle, intelligent gaze, knowing that the sympathy is real, and also that every minute twitch of his muscles is being examined and compared against a list of suspicious behaviors; being kind has never gotten in the way of being good at his job, for Gordon.

"No," he says, and pulls the picture of the first scene at Eleventh and Dolrado forward to glower at it. "I- is that? Oh my god."

"What?"

"The necklace," he says. "It looks just like - like my mother's. Exactly."

"They're real," Gordon says. "Valued at somewhere around fifteen hundred dollars. There's one in each scene. I don't suppose there's anything you can tell me about the necklace your mother wore, Mr. Wayne. Anything that made it unique?

They are worth fifteen hundred eighty, to be exact. Purchased at Evandi Jewelers on Fifty Third and Towne, a custom order. The date is from over a year ago, and the order was shipped to Paris, routed first through London, Munich, and Prague. Cash transaction, untraceable, and Evandi had no security feed at the time, their cameras having conveniently developed a problem several hours before the purchase.

The one these were meant to imitate was bought at the same jeweler, twenty three years ago.

"My father bought it for her birthday," Bruce says, and goddammit, he still can't get his pulse all the way down. "I didn't want him to wait, I talked him into giving it to her that night. Early." This is more than he intended to say; more than he needs to give away to make this believable. Method acting is definitely going on his list of things to never do again. "He got it somewhere in Gotham, I think. I don't know where. I'm sorry, but I don't think I ever knew that."

"I don't know a single eight-year-old who would pay attention to something like that, Mr. Wayne. It's okay."

He flinches. Christ, this is like some horrible joke- the echo is so perfect, so strange, that he wonders if Hush planned this part too, somehow; Gordon sitting in his breakfast room, showing him these images and dredging up the past, intentionally and not. Pearls and blood and his voice._It's okay._

It's so far from okay it's almost funny.

"I do-" he draws a breath. "I have it here. If you need it for comparison, I mean."

"That might be helpful."

He doubts it. But he can hardly back down now, and Gordon was going to ask for it anyway.

Bruce pushes away from the table and stalks out of the room, unable to muster politeness at this moment when half his mind is occupied with a performance that isn't altogether a performance and the other half is mired in memory. He thinks Gordon believes him. He also thinks he's going to be paying for this in broken sleep for a while.

The safe is in his study. Not the one Wayne brings his occasional business "pals" to but the one he'll spend a few hours in willingly, a thing more library than office. He waves Alfred off and crouches to key in the combination, with Gordon standing a few feet away.

The only items in here are the long cherry wood box that holds his mother's necklace and an equally long case, burnt to fragile charcoal, its contents even more delicate. He only registers the clear parallel to the chair Hush propped his Rachel imitation on when he hears Gordon's step behind him.

Well, this will shorten that particular facet of the investigation. He's really going to have to scramble to stay ahead of them now. _Brilliant, Bruce._

"What is that?" Gordon says. Bruce fights the impulse to slam the safe door shut; to hover over it and guard these things from daylight and prying eyes. The pearls are bad enough. He could strip naked and feel less exposed than this.

"Something of my father's," he says instead. It takes effort to prevent his voice from dropping into a much lower register. "A stethoscope. There's not much left of it."

"It was burned when your house burned down?"

"Yes." Bruce snatches the wooden box out and stands, makes himself hold still and silent while Gordon plucks it from his hands and opens it. He is perversely glad it was Gordon who came to do this interview, despite the mental acrobatics he's had to perform this morning; the idea of handing this piece of himself to anybody else is outright repulsive. "They look the same," he says again, as Gordon eyes the soft pale shine of pearls.

"I think they _are_ the same," Gordon murmurs, mostly to himself. It's almost possible to watch his mind connect the dots: pearl necklace, burned stethoscope case, burned chair. His eyes rise, meet Bruce's with what feels like tangible intensity. "This feels like a pretty personal vendetta to me, Mr. Wayne."

"You're telling me."

"I'll be increasing the protection we have on you. I know that isn't very convenient for you, and I'm sorry for that, but I feel that under the circumstances, it's necessary."

Bruce runs a hand through his hair, and for a moment he actually considers it. The GCPD is stretched thin enough as it is. They can't afford to lose any more people to this stupidity, and he cannot stand to have them risking their lives for him. Hush has planned this well: Gordon's people will be tied up protecting Wayne, Batman will be tied up dodging them. And Gotham will suffer for it.

Gotham has suffered enough on his behalf in the last year. Crackdowns that became turf wars, mob bosses that became desperate and dangerous, criminals that would never have spoken to one another banding together for safety, forming gangs, learning karate and silence and daylight robbery.

Enemies that became monsters, seeking to match the extremes they saw in _him_. Battles that left so much collateral damage the line between_winning_ and _losing_ was no longer visible or viable.

How much good has he done, really?

He draws a breath. It sticks in his chest. "Fine," he says, and doesn't say anything else. Whether it's to protect Gordon or himself or Gotham, he has no idea. Maybe none of them. Maybe all three. Maybe it's just the selfish desire to have the dark to himself: Alfred might be right about him after all.

Alfred is generally right about him.

Pupils dilate and contract. Chest expands in a larger breath. Gordon is waiting for more, knows he's not going to get it: knows he hasn't gotten everything. Bruce curls his hands into fists and rolls his jaw, looks at his mother's necklace. Lets most of the need to pull it out of Gordon's grip and hide it away again reach his eyes.

Eyeing him soberly, Gordon brings his other hand up, cradles it with gentle hands, like it's alive and fragile. Something about that is almost impossible to look at. Bruce holds still, looking anyway.

_Pain is of no significance beyond the ability it has to alter your choices._

"I'll bring this back in a few days," Gordon says. "I appreciate you being willing to let me borrow it; I'll take very good care of it. You have my word."

Inexplicably, this sounds to him like _Son, it's okay, it's going to be all right_.

He drags himself into the shower while Gordon is speaking with Alfred, and turns the water on as hot as he can stand.


	21. Chapter 21

**Yes, this update took a bit, sorry (and I hope it isn't too wanderish, but it may very well be, and if so, also sorry). Real life is probably going to be be an inconvenient beeyatch for the next few months, but I'm going to do my best not to let me get behind. :) **

**Thank you, fabulous people, for reading**!

* * *

"To the right a little. No, genius, your other right."

"By which you mean _your_ right, right?" Bruce says, not bothering to tone down the sarcasm (much), or to turn and see the scowl he's sure this has earned him. His neighbor makes the little _hah!_ noise he's coming to associate with him being wrong in some way that has little to do with logic. It's both approval and disgust; Mrs. Grumm never seems more in her element than when someone's giving her lip. He wonders if she ever taught grade school. She'd have given even Alfred a run for his money.

Then again, Alfred was probably a perfect kid. Great grades. Good posture. Always raised his hand.

"Not that much," Mrs. Grumm snipes. "The other way. No, no, too mu- _back_, for god's sake, it's not a graveyard set in a horror movie, it's a rose garden. There. Better. Honestly, don't they teach you boys how to use a level these days?"

"Must have missed that class in billionaire school," Bruce says, and Mrs. Grumm cackles before surprising him by leaning close to shove a big silver bolt into the hinge. Only his hands react, tightening on the frame of the gate and -inevitably- throwing it off the perfect angle. Mrs. Grumm heaves a grumbly sigh so heavy with subtext he's surprised it doesn't drop to the ground with an audible _clunk!_, and muscles her way in a little farther to get the gate in her version of order (which is two degrees off, but he's not arguing anymore), bony fingers clutching the wrought iron in a perfect imitation of every graveyard scene in a B horror movie ever.

Bruce thinks of the papery skin of the murder victims, their limp open palms the exact opposite of Mrs. Grumm's_pry-it-out-of-my-cold-hands-when_ grip on all things she determines to be hers. The Post, leading the way in sensational bad taste, printed one of the crime scene photographs on the front page this morning with only a minimal amount of blurring, under the headline TRAGIC WAYNE HISTORY REPEATING. He'd had to drive eight miles on back roads to lose the paparazzi trail, and even now he's braced for a repeat of the reporter chase from his summer here as a kid, only this time Mrs. Grumm will be armed with a ball-peen hammer and her knees will give long before she reaches the edge of her property.

He finds something else to look at.

There's a solitary rose bush budding on the far side of the garden, delicate pink tips against plain brown branches. A few pale green leaves have unfurled on the east-facing side of the thing. It's maybe 42 degrees out here.

"It's on top of the septic tank."

As nonsequitors go, that one's got to be worthy of some kind of medal.

"Mmhm," Bruce hums, shaking the last bolt into alignment with worn threads. Mrs. Grumm wields a phillips-head about the same way she does an umbrella, though thankfully with a bit more precision. She's glaring at the hinge like she might be able to bore a new hole just with her eyes. Her hands aren't as steady as they were a moment ago; they have acquired a noticeable tremor that looks less like weak muscles and more like the chronic nerve degeneration of age, brought on likely by the fine motor control needed for the screwdriver. He thinks again of the nerve damage in the victims (stupid), looks again at the rose bush, and realizes it's on top of the septic tank, which would hold enough heat to change the temperature of the soil and probably alter the dormancy schedule of the plants atop it.

Just like the old lady to do something like that on purpose, no doubt as much for the amusement of explaining the extremely mundane root of the miracle to her guests as for the pleasure of seeing a single plant bloom early.

She makes a small, frustrated noise as the screwdriver scrapes over the hinge. Her face hardens into something rueful and maybe a little ashamed before she takes a breath and it smoothes out again.

Bruce transfers all the weight of the gate to his right hand and gently pries the screwdriver from her grip with his left, slipping his hand and wrist deftly through the bars to fit screwdriver tip to bolt head. Mrs. Grumm leans back, folds her arms, and supervises with narrowed eyes. Three bolts later he lets the weight of the gate leave his right hand, then pulls it shut till the double latches snap into place. It could use some oil, but it shouldn't go anywhere now.

"For that you get another brandy," Mrs. Grumm declares, backing up to eye the gate with grim satisfaction. Bruce reaches through the gate again and trips the latches to let himself in. Her lips purse in disapproval, and he gives her a small smile.

"You should put a second pair of latches up top," he tells her. "Better security."

"Somehow I doubt many of the types that would want to get into an old lady's flower garden have lock-picking skills, young rascal."

"You might be surprised. And that wasn't hard, Mrs. Grumm."

"Harder than you made it look._ You _used to jump it," she recalls. Which clinches it; she definitely knew he was one of her _young hoodlums_. She never said a word to Alfred, who had he known about it would have had him over here every day after school for a month, weeding and washing and painting.

"That was before you bought the entrance to the underworld," Bruce says. "You could put a three-headed dog in front of this thing and it would look right at home."

"Find me one and I'll do it." She shakes out her housecoat, turns to brush a hand over one of the tiny rosebuds. "_That_ might keep the hoodlums out. Come on, genius, the tarts are probably done cooking by now."

Tarts. And brandy. He's wandered into an episode of Golden Girls.

The gardenias he brought look ridiculously pompous in her crystal vase, and in the half hour they spent outdoors have filled the room with a cloying sweetness that reminds him of funerals. Buried far under that is the scent of whatever she's cooking. "I'll just have water, thanks," Bruce says quickly as Mrs. Grumm reaches for the brandy bottle she left on the shelf. She makes another _hah!_ sound and turns to the fridge.

"I was starting to think you'd let me get through the whole damned bottle before you said something."

She sets a beer in front of him, and another in front of herself.

He stares. Mrs. Grumm meets his eyes. Her face wrinkles briefly up into a smile that is one part amused and two parts smug. She opens a drawer and rummages through it. "When you were a kid you drank about a gallon of that horrible orange powdered mix stuff-"

"_Tang_," Bruce breathes, the memory, which he must have buried out of a desire not to be scarred for life by that sour chemical flavor, arriving in full sensory detail like it was just waiting to be mentioned. For a second that taste hovers on the back of his tongue, calling up the ghosts of hot summer afternoons spent at this counter, the sting of thorn wounds in his fingertips, the scent of oatmeal raisin cookies… the weight of a loneliness so huge and present it was like a shadow falling over everything he came near.

"That's it. I fed it to you every time you and Alfred came over and you never said a word. Most unnaturally polite kid I ever met."

"And you were what, waiting for me to say something _then_ too?"

"No, no, that sort of thing's never as funny as you think it's going to be when you do it to an eight year old," Mrs. Grumm says with a dismissive hand wave, and Bruce snorts, because she clearly means that. It's easy to imagine her benevolently tormenting her grandchildren in precisely this manner. "Well. Usually. No, I ran out of sangria one day and decided I'd try some. Thought I'd accidentally swallowed tile cleaner for a minute. Actually called poison control. You drank that twice a week for _months_," she crows, pointing the bottle opener at him, when he starts to laugh. He pulls it out of her hand and opens their bottles, surprised both by her totally skewed sense of humor and by the strength of the memory of being here before, of being eight and stunned into silence by loss, surrounded by adults trying gently to prod him back into speech.

Did he _choos_e to forget all this?

Probably he did. Why wouldn't he? He's sorry he forgot Mrs. Grumm in the process, though.

She tips her bottle back and swallows, then utters a contented sigh, looking far more at home with a beer in her hand. Unbelievable. She probably doesn't even _like _brandy. "You're not quite as bad with a screwdriver as I'd been led to believe, Bruce Wayne. Though you're better with a bottle opener."

"It's all in the wrist," he assures her.

"Well, when you come by with those fancy new gate latches bring me a decent wine, and we'll see what you can do with a cork."

He's beginning to think there's a pile of hapless men stashed somewhere in this giant house of hers, all of whom probably arrived here thinking they were going to fix something, maybe sit through a dinner, and then go back to their lives before Mrs. Grumm buried them in an endless list of quick lunch dates and harmless requests. He eyes her narrowly, watches her face shift from guileless to amused.

"How many husbands did you say you had, Mrs. G?" The diminutive falls easily off his tongue; like the taste of Tang, it was just waiting to come back, apparently. Suddenly there is a wealth of information about her cluttering his frontal lobe -her fondness for jazz and hot cinnamon gobstoppers, her calm way of ushering him inside, her weird tendency to scribble physics equations on discarded newspapers, to fling complex math at him when he sank too far into himself. Her collection of Star Wars action figures, which even in a wretched daze of grief and guilt he'd found fascinating.

Her incredibly strange conversational skills.

"Pshhh." She waves the bottle vaguely, takes another sip. "Useless things, husbands. Like sports cars. You keep trading up and all you get is a bigger payment, a lot more maintenance and a shinier paint job. Nothing impressive under the hood. They don't make 'em like they used to."

"You should probably tell the Gotham Post that," Bruce says dryly.

Her lined eyes meet his over their beers, and for a second they are sober; and he knows for certain that she's read the paper. She hasn't mentioned it, and she's not going to now -he can see from the way her jaw firms and her gaze flickers sideways that she won't- and knowing that brings an ache of memory like a stone in his chest: she did this then, too, sliding quietly around the edges of the darkness he'd been curled around, offering misdirections by way of humor and math, like a magician working a slow trick over the course of months. Any second now she'll demand he solve some algebraic equation.

"I'm sure they'll figure it out for themselves the next time you run off with thirty skinny ladies in tutus," Mrs. Grumm says instead, a wicked smile wrinkling one side of her face. Bruce huffs in surprise and relief, and shakes his head.

"It was only twenty three ladies, actually, and Alfred did most of the running off if I recall."

She grins like a shark. "He would. I did enjoy his visits, back in the day."

Bruce inhales a mouthful of beer and has to cough his way through the next few seconds of appalled speculation. Dear god. "What? You didn't. No. Really? No way. You _didn't._"

Her poker face is probably better than Batman's. He honestly can't tell if she's kidding or not. "So what if we did?" she says pleasantly.

_"_You- he- and I was _where_, exactly, the living room? No. No way."

"You spent an awful lot of time in that garden," Mrs. Grumm remarks, and gets up as though nothing is wrong, donning a pair of potholder mitts and pulling the oven door open. As if there's any chance he's going to have an appetite now. "Stop sputtering, Bruce, you must have figured out by now that old people have sex too."

"Yeah… thanks for that. You still didn't."

"It's basically the same process, with a little more caution and a lot more relevant experience-"

"Dear god, Mrs. G, _stop_."

She pauses, bent over the tray she's pulling out of the oven, shoulders shaking. One mitt-clad hand rises to swipe at her eyes. "Oh, god, I always did love screwing with your tiny head. You're so _serious_."

"That's- not funny."

"Yeah, it really is." She turns, sets the tray between them on one of the oven mitts. It's definitely not tarts. It looks like small lumps of batter rolled in cornmeal. He's probably going to have to eat one to be polite, though Mrs. Grumm doesn't deserve much polite right now; he's going to have the image of Alfred and her in his head for the rest of his _life_.

"You'll understand one day," she says sweetly, and hands him one in a way that suggests it's going to end up on his shirt if he doesn't take it.

It turns out to be a hot pepper wrapped in cream cheese, which is a nice metaphor for this whole day.


	22. Chapter 22

Note:

It's aliiiiiive!

Well, sort of. So sorry for the extended hiatus - real life has been, to put it mildly, a real bitch lately, and when I'm funneling most of my energy into work projects I don't have much left over for writing, even if I'd had the time. Things are a wee bit calmer now, and hopefully they'll stay that way so I can have, hey! A bit of a social life as well as a creative one. What a thought.

Hope your summers are less nails-on-chalkboard-ish than mine has been so far. :)

* * *

The Klein malware begins to bear fruit at 11 that night, just as he's starting to let his mind turn towards the Narrows and the turf war happening there. Like everything else to do with this case, it's backwards and unexpected: someone at Klein hacks the Wayne R&D servers, and the virus he loaded onto their systems weeks ago leaps to his.

Lucius' voice on the phone had enough edge to it to pull him out of the meth lab he'd been in the process of dismantling. When he arrives at the warehouse both Lucius and Alfred are bent over the console, fingers spidering over keys. Neither of them bother to turn at his arrival. The screens flicker through a variety of images with no clear connection; molecular diagrams and building schematics, graphs and chemical analysis reports and scanned newspaper clippings. Bruce sits next to Alfred, strips his gloves off and codes in. When photos of very familiar people begin to stream by on screen twelve he hesitates, recognizing the faces. These are the murder victims, hair in natural browns and blonds, skin in pinks and tans, eyes aware and intelligent. Alive. They look odd to him this way, less real than the caricatures Hush made of them, which he sees in his sleep.

Other features flicker past, younger - children. More victims? Or potential victims? He boots up facial recognition, begins pulling image files out of the flood and sterilizing them.

"It hasn't yet breached the second firewall, sir," Alfred says, and Bruce pulls his attention away from those strange, living faces. The fact that it got past the first firewall is impressive. Then again, he wrote it.

"We're still pulling data," he says, to be sure, and Lucius makes a vague _hmm_ sound that he takes as a yes. "How much damage so far?"

"So far, Mr. Wayne, they're only getting the façade. We're dragging it out in the hope that we can get a lock."

"Origin?"

"Klein's servers are actually a routing point made to look like the origin. It bounces over half the globe, but I believe the source is local. I've got the signal tracked to Gotham's east end. I can't go any deeper without tipping him off that we're onto him."

"He already _knows_ we're onto him," Bruce says grimly, and keys in the failsafe phrase he built into the virus. Eleven screens go blank. The four that were dragging data out of Klein's hidden archives do not; they flicker at the same speed, feeding into an isolated server, pouring out months of drug trials and experiments and bookkeeping. And the bios of five people that died badly, for the sake of a game with a Bat.

"An invitation," Bruce mutters, thinking. Alfred sends him a sharp look.

"Shall I respectfully decline on your behalf, sir?"

"Not just yet, Alfred. I'd like to know who else is on the guest list."

Silence from Alfred. At this rate there are going to be ferrets crawling all over his warehouse by the weekend, but he can live with that. What he cannot live with is this sinking feeling that he's being flanked; that his enemy is two moves ahead while he's still trying to figure out which pieces are on the board. The Klein connection is little more than a front, as the many data shells that layer over his systems, providing false information to anyone who manages to get this far, are fronts. Klein is just a link back to Wayne- chosen, he suspects, for that reason, the way Thomas and Martha Wayne were chosen as subjects for the sick little tableaus, the way Rachel Dawes was. Links. Barbs. Bait.

And Wayne- Wayne is a link to the Batman.

Or is he bait?

"Who _are_ you?" he murmurs, ignoring the uneasy glances he gets from Lucius and Alfred. That niggling sensation of familiarity is back; it's been haunting him for weeks, flitting in and out of his mind, slipping away like oil when he tries to grasp it.

_You must never delude yourself into believing in your objectivity, Bruce. A man will twist all paths that lead to what he fears to face; even you. Seek out what you fear. Confront it again and again, until it has no power over you. _

_Pain is of no significance beyond the ability it has to alter your choices._

Goddammit.

It can't say anything good about him, that the best source of advice he has to this day is a dead mass-murdering ninja with a bent toward Eastern philosophy and the conscience of a sociopath.

He shuts his eyes, draws several measured breaths, and lets the order he imposes on his thought processes, the layer of logic that keeps the rage useful and contained, slip sideways. Rachel's face lives in the dark on the other side.

She is always here now, her smile, her scent. Her memory is slowly merging with the slick blackness of blood on pavement; with his mother's indescribable expression as she flung herself between the gunman and her child; with his father's final wet breaths, the agonized comprehension in his eyes. All the evidence has been dragging him back to this. Somehow the answer is here, where he almost never goes outside of dreams.

The faint sounds of hard drives and cooling fans and the men next to him breathing fade away. The pain is just as real as it was when he was eight, just as physical: nausea, a twisting of the nerves in his abdomen, a pressure at his chest and temples like he is miles underwater and sinking. Over the years it has become ambient noise, so constant he has learned to tune it out in favor of other, smaller sounds, things more significant to _now_ and the moments following _now_.

But in the small dark space behind his eyelids and beyond the discipline of his training, it is always _now_.

Fact: Hush knew Rachel.

Hypothesis: He may then have known Thomas and Martha Wayne.

Fact: He knew, or knows, Bruce Wayne.

It's almost impossible not to process this as an attack. But that niggling whisper in the back of his mind says otherwise, says all of this is merely maneuvering, the setup before the strike. He was not thinking clearly when this ugly game began; Rachel's death had turned that background hum into a howl, skewing his perceptions, drowning out the signs of a far closer connection than he was willing to see. _A man will twist all paths that lead to what he fears to face._

Even a man who made of fear a weapon. Wouldn't Henri laugh at this?

The murders were intended to keep him confused, reacting. He never got his balance back. He never took the time to _try_, knowing it would lead him right back here, where the streetlights loom like nightmare eyes and the silence is new and absolute, where blood has soaked the knees of his pants with sticky, fading heat and he is helpless and small and utterly alone.

Fact: This response was intended. _Predicted_.

Hush knew Bruce Wayne very well.

Well enough that the link to Batman may be an intuitive leap rather than a logical one. From the moment he found the first victims, he has focused on finding the evidence he might have left behind that connected his two faces, and he ran right past the possibility that someone who knew _him_, who knew his face before he built himself new ones, might find the grieving, angry, restless boy he had been an entirely likely candidate for the man behind the mask.

That… narrows the field considerably. There are only a few candidates now. One of them is sitting next to him.

"Put this on a flash drive and send it to Gordon," Bruce says, opening his eyes and tapping keys until the aborted IP trail hiding behind Klein's servers has been isolated. "All of the data we pulled, once the scrub has cleared it, and all of the forensics work on the murder scenes that I've stored in the green file. Send it all immediately. And tell me if we find any matches on the unidentified people in those profiles."

Lucius' eyebrows vanish into his hairline; he shoots Bruce a hard, considering stare. Alfred, irritatingly, just nods without batting an eyelash, like this was the inevitable next step.

"How did your conversation with the commissioner go, Mr. Wayne?"

Lucius does casual like nobody else in the world. They could be sitting on his back porch drinking beer and his voice would sound just like that, Bruce is sure. He strikes more keys, initiates a diagnostic. The malware's neutralized, but he's got a crawling sensation running down his spine. Nobody has ever picked up on one of his programs before. He's always been careful to cover his tracks, to imagine every possible mistake he might make; apparently he missed a few. It's humbling and disturbing.

"Gordon assigned two more detectives to my detail," he says, rising, knowing that this is hardly the answer Lucius was fishing for. "I'm going back out. Put the forensics report from the Dolrado scene on mobile, please."

The _please _is mostly for Alfred, whose icy-calm expression and quick, pecking keystrokes suggest that dinner will be somewhere in the 8-figure range of the Scoville scale, and may arrive at high speed from across a room. His butler doesn't even turn to acknowledge. Bruce, leaving that concern for later, takes the lower exit into the old subway system, and distracts himself over the next hour by leading Rugetti's third shift, who have armed themselves with sawed-offs since he and Gordon killed the heavy arms trade coming in from the south, on a wild chase through the north edge of the Narrows. They are overconfident, drunk on their inflated numbers and the window-rattling bellows of their weapons. Probably also on Freeze; Rugetti's people have never been particularly good about keeping their fingers out of the product.

The fun ends on Corlane Bridge, in a wall of GCPD in riot gear and a volley of bean bag rounds.

Batman takes one in the thigh just below a plate and is knocked off-balance, mostly in sheer surprise at the force of the damned thing. Bean bags used to be a toy: it's hard to believe something that goes by the same name can rupture tissue. He flips neatly over the bridge's rail under cover of a howling confusion of indignant mobsters, flinging out a sweep line at ankle height on the way over that, pulled taut, throws most of his pursuers facefirst into concrete. As he attaches himself to the underside of the bridge the night fills with the bellows of furious thugs demanding lawyers and grimly triumphant police demanding compliance.

It takes only fifteen minutes for GCPD to clear the bridge. Gordon has apparently learned to take his use of the word "several" seriously: he sent two extra vans with his teams.

"I hope you don't charge by the head," the commissioner says to empty air, and Batman unclips. He hangs by a hand for a minute, trying to decide whether there's an even slightly elegant way to get back up to the right side of the bridge. His thigh is numbed and throbbing. He should probably go easy on the leg, at least until the shocked tissue has reperfused and he has a better sense of the damage.

He swings one of the grapple lines up, aiming for the memory of a lamppost, and hauls when he feels it bite. His landing is less than perfect; the leg is unsteady under his weight, and Gordon is, unfortunately, watching. He flicks a button on the suit and the streetlights buzz and die, dropping the length of the bridge into a dreary twilight of ambient light pollution under a cold, drifting drizzle. Gordon looks thin and tired in his shapeless barn coat, hands stuffed into the deep pockets and his hat shoved far down on his head, even the reds and oranges of his heat readings seeming somehow muted.

"You got clipped?"

"I'm fine." He can hear the irritation in the rasp: it's 2 am and Gotham's commissioner is worrying about him. Must be a day that ends in _Y_.

"You got clipped," Gordon concludes, irony and exhaustion and irritation equal to his own freighting the words. He edges forward a few steps, fumbles in a pocket. There's the snick of a lighter and a sigh: Bruce breathes cigarette smoke, a scent he will never not associate with Jim Gordon mulling over something frustrating -on a rooftop, in an alley, on a bridge, leaning wearily against the rail of his rickety balcony long after he should have gone to bed. He's tried to quit twice just in the time he's partnered himself with the Bat. He's never lasted more than three weeks. Gotham always forces herself back into his lungs, not content with all the other ways she tries to take his life.

"Before you say it, I suggest you remember that you just led a pack of Rugetti's trigger-happy thugs into three squads of officers who have orders to shoot you on sight," Gordon says around the filter of his cigarette. "I think you can let me have my Camel Light in peace now, don't you?"

"I have armor," he rasps. "Your lungs don't."

"The American Lung Association will thank you for that sound bite, I'm sure."

He glowers at the mist, pointedly not noticing Gordon's small, crooked smile. His body aches in myriad ways. There are bruises blooming on hip and shoulder blade from bullets. The knee, less reliable than it was before the Joker, feels like it's swelling under the armor. And his thigh is a hot knot of pain, blood filling in traumatized capillaries, nerves waking up and moaning messages of damage. Adrenaline is draining out of him, leaving behind the shivery sensation of near muscle fatigue and the returning awareness that his enemy is intelligent and careful- that nights like this, which should be the reason for the Bat's existence, are in fact little more than a distraction when someone as deadly as Hush is on the chessboard. He'd like to lean on the lamppost, but he thinks of how that would look and shifts his weight instead. Gordon draws a long drag, blows it out with rueful pleasure.

"It's going to take me a while to get through what you sent," Gordon says. There's curiosity hiding under that casual tone; the Bat never sends half-analyzed data, certainly not by the gigabyte. "I'm not even going to think about how you got most of that."

"Better if you don't," Batman mutter-growls, wondering if it's even going to be possible to get back over the side of the bridge silently, or if he should just give up on surprise arrivals and departures for the night and walk out of here. Gordon makes a quick arm-motion, and he raises a hand to catch the object that arcs between them, which weighs much less than it looks like it should. Plastic.

He eyes it, sees a child's toy badge in a ziploc baggie, and is trying to decide if this is weird gallows humor or a charmingly silly gesture of solidarity (Gordon, with two kids and more than a decade of Gotham's vicious street beats under his belt, is probably capable of both at once in the right mood) when the half-read forensics report flashes into his mind and he realizes he's looking at an item from the Dolrado scene's evidence list. He squashes the urge to drop the thing.

"It was on the victim. My people didn't find a damn thing on it," Gordon is saying. "I figured you'd want a shot before I tell them to move on.

"Yes."

A spotlight washes toward them from the north side- Gordon's people, coming back for the requisite final sweep. Gordon turns, coat flaring, and raises a hand. Batman is already out of sight over the bridge's rail, gripping the slick bars, leg protesting under the strain. He clings for several minutes while Gordon exchanges news and sarcasm about the mass booking underway at central with detectives Allen and Marashina. By the time Gordon sends them on their way the muscles of his injured leg are beginning to spasm, and the contact pads on his gloves are slowly losing friction as the bridge acquires a layer of ice.

"You still there?" Gordon sounds a little harried now.

Batman slithers over the rail to crouch in the deeper shadow of the lamppost. "That's never going to get less creepy, is it?" Gordon breathes. "My people are searching the access points on both sides of the river for a weapons cache: Bullock got one of Rugetti's guys talking. Unless you can fly off this bridge, I think you're leaving with me."

"I can manage."

"Humor me," Gordon says wearily, looking tired enough to sleep right here on the bridge.

He glares, but he already knows he doesn't have a better option- or an even slightly sensible worse one, for that matter. And Gordon's steady, pained gaze is difficult to refuse.

Crammed sideways into the backseat of his Volvo a few minutes later with what smells like mothballed winter coats draped over him, Bruce wishes he'd held a firmer line.

The suit is digging little rips into the vinyl of Gordon's back seats, there's no room for his shoulders, and every bump over a concrete strip is driving his knee farther under the front passenger side seat. "Be out of here in a minute," Gordon says under his breath, and accelerates into a turn hard enough to press Bruce into the edge of the seat as they are waved through a checkpoint. Caught between growing annoyance and resigned amusement, Bruce entertains himself by calling up the forensics report from Dolrado and scanning it at high speed while Gordon navigates them to somewhere presumably secluded enough that Batman can unfold out of the back of his car without causing a mass panic.

He's deep enough into the data that he blinks when the car stops -and scowls when he peers out of the window to see a familiar neighborhood.

"See you upstairs," Gordon says, leaving no room for argument. He's already shutting the door and crossing the street.

Brilliant.

Bruce debates simply leaving: it's almost 3, he was planning on shaking down some of the recent clients of a sex trade ring he thinks has been smuggling young South American women into Gotham, and Gordon needs to sleep, even if he thinks otherwise.

But he knows Gordon will just bury himself in the same forensics report that's still scrolling past his right eye, and the memory of that paper-scattered kitchen table, of the heavy silence that has settled into that apartment like a layer of dust, pulls him out of the car and up to the third floor balcony. Gordon has unlocked the door- like he needs any help getting in. It reminds him that there's an item on his belt meant for this door.

Gordon is pulling his coffee out of the freezer, apparently having no intention of going to bed. There's a stack of emptied microwave dinner boxes on the counter next to the sink. The linoleum is peeling in one corner. The faucet leaks slightly. Bruce turns, shuts the balcony door, pulls a tiny power drill from the lockpicking kit on his belt and attaches the laser sensors to either side. When he turns Gordon is frozen by the sink, watching this process with coffee filters in one hand and his eyebrows lost in his hairline.

Squelching the impulse to stare at the floor and scuff a toe like a kid caught breaking a window, Bruce tosses the old deadbolt across the tiny kitchen. Gordon catches it and stares at it, eyes bewildered and a little glazed behind his glasses. He holds it up to the light over the sink and frowns at the faint scratches, evidence of multiple entries from the outside.

(He's perfectly capable of breaking and entering with no evidence, but with Gordon it's always seemed somehow polite, like leaving a business card under the door.)

"I'm three floors up. Do you really think anybody but you is going to come in this way?"

"You're a target.

"Lots of people in this city are targets."

"Only one is the face of the push to rid the city of organized crime."

"That's a fair point," Gordon murmurs, and eyes the faint red beams criss-crossing his balcony door with clear misgiving. "But I think we both know at least twice a week I'm going to walk into that at some ungodly hour of the morning, and you'll be here storming the gate before I can figure out how to turn it off."

Bruce braces and waves a hand through the beams, creating an instant electrical _snap_. The suit grounds most of the current, but not quite all of it, and his wince is reflexive. Gordon's eyes widen. "You'll remember after the first time," Bruce rasps with grim humor. Gordon snorts and turns to shut the coffee maker off, shaking his head.

"At this rate Rugetti's not going to need to come after me; I'll have a heart attack in my kitchen. Sorry, it's hazelnut flavored coffee. Barbara did the shopping."

Surprise makes him turn too fast, but Gordon doesn't notice: he is staring into his cup with unnecessary concentration, and something about the quiet strain on his face doesn't invite questions, even if the Bat were the type to hang out in a man's kitchen asking about the general state of his marriage.

"Signing papers. She'll live in Chicago," Gordon says, his tone so light and so deliberately free of pain that it makes the words twice as awful. "Her parents are there. It's a good city. There are some… some good schools. So." He takes a long sip, a hard swallow, as though the words are too bitter not to coat his throat with something hot before speaking them. "It's for the best."

Bruce can only stare. Gordon's gaze is calm, hollowed out by whatever reserves of sense and steel it has taken for him to accept this state of affairs; to believe it right and necessary. _For the best_. It has cost him so much, their alliance. The weight of it sits on his shoulders under the barn coat, in the bruised skin around his eyes, hovers thickly in the air between them like ozone.

Nothing about this is best. Nothing about this is even_ adequate_.

Nothing about it is fixable, either.

"Come on, drink your coffee," Gordon says a little roughly, turning to hand him a hot mug he shouldn't accept- he should turn and leave, he should never come back. There's no repairing any of what he's done but at least he can remove himself from this equation, and then maybe Gordon's life can find a different sort of _best_; one that isn't defined by nights where the body count is low and only a handful of his people are hurt; by weekends when he gets to see his children in safety far from the home he's made, yielding by irrevocable degrees the minutes and months and years of math homework and school dances, band practice, of driving lessons and teenage stupidity and first dates, to the slow and thankless work of freeing Gotham from herself. To the slow and thankless work, the endless, thankless risk, of having the Bat's back.

To making the city a better home for someone _else's _family.

"Gordon," he says, because he can't not, it's unfair in a way that pulls speech from him even though he knows it's useless to speak; and he gets back a warning glare that says clear as glass that this is the line. But the cowl crosses all lines, the cowl is made only for drawing them, so he shoves his way past the twist of pulse in his throat that isn't the Bat, and makes the Bat's voice shape something far too human to say without a mask to hide behind anyway. "Jim. _I_ don't have anything to lose."

"But you _did_ lose something," Gordon says, ferocity and sorrow in equal measure crumpling his face. "You _did._ Didn't you? More than once, I think. So that's not true. And you're still here."

It stuns him silent for a long minute as he struggles to push away the sudden, breath-stealing vividness of memory. Gordon carries more guilt over Rachel's death than he ever guessed. Gordon reads him even better than he suspected; reads him too well. And feels far, far more responsibility for the welfare of a masked vigilante than he feared.

He should have seen this coming. He never intended to be anything but a silent force for justice; a night terror made flesh. Proof that the line could be drawn. But Gordon, even in the first few meetings when his surprise and alarm were plain every time he had to deal with the Bat's silent arrivals, spoke to him like a man that just happened to be in strange body armor and a mask, instead of a nightmare that just happened to have the voice and shape of a man. Gordon has always dealt with the blood and bone under the armor. It's his own humanity he's seeing in Gordon's unflinching, exhausted stare, and he can feel the muscles of his thighs and calves begin to twitch, telling him far too late to get out, that this is dangerous and stupid- but that's impossible now, and probably was as far back as the night he hid in the dark of Gordon's office and said _now we're two_.

What an idiot he'd been. How did he not _see_?

"You don't get to decide this for me," Gordon tells him.

Defeated, Bruce tips his head in a short nod and sighs. He has no right to tell anyone what they can or cannot choose to give up for Gotham. Jim Gordon least of all.

"Good," Gordon says gently.

Christ, what a mess he's made.

"Don't," Gordon breathes. "Jesus, I can _see_ you blaming yourself. Cut it out." Whatever expression has made it past the cowl, it puts a small scowl on Gordon's face. He points. "Or I'm making Montoya your official liaison and telling her you only drink mocha frappuccinos with extra whip."

It surprises a faint huff of amusement out of him (and a tiny grimace, because Montoya would get Bullock and Stephens in on it, and he'd be drowning in sugar-soaked coffee shakes for the next twelve months). Bruce takes the cup, which smells like chemicals and will probably taste like Folgers Instant with corn syrup, but it has caffeine. There's an ache in his chest like another, deeper bruise, and Gordon won't look at anything but his coffee cup while he's pulling that quiet, inexorable, and apparently bottomless strength of will over the raw grief in his eyes. Bruce decides his own cup is pretty interesting, despite the smell.

"So is there anything in particular I'm supposed to be looking for in this wealth of information you've sent?" Gordon says, firmly changing the subject. Bruce shakes his head, sips. It does taste sort of like Folgers, if a can of Folgers were left to rust in a garage for a few months and the coffee filter were made from pulped unwashed socks. He sets the cup down. Not even caffeine at three am is worth this.

"Could use a second pair of eyes on the raw data," he says, the words sour under the taste of the coffee. It's an admission: he knows he's too close, and even a quick scan of what he sent would have told Gordon the same thing, though not for the same reasons. He also knows that Hush may not be as deadly or random as the last man that decided the Bat was a personal archenemy, but he is far smarter. Gordon is the only one he trusts to put the pieces together, if he doesn't survive the endgame.

Gordon's eyes flicker with thought and he sips- grimaces, dumps the coffee in the sink. Then nods with a studied lack of sympathy. "This Hush seems to want your attention pretty badly," he says, voice gone cool and clinical. "Think we've got another Joker situation on our hands?"

Everything in him wants to recoil from that question. He folds his arms. "Yes."

Gordon sighs, pushes his glasses up his nose. "I agree," he murmurs. "This one's less crazy, but he seems smarter. What do you need me to do?

"Watch your back. And be ready to move with at least two teams if I send you something concrete. He'll have good defenses."

"What about Wayne?"

God, this is all he needs tonight. "You think he's in more danger?" he says evenly, and Gordon leans against the counter with a weary frown, rubs his eyes under the glasses.

"I don't know," he murmurs. "I assigned DeRibas and Parnel to his detail to give them all a chance for shorter shifts. It's clear he's not telling us everything. But I think Montoya's right: he's not involved. In that, at least. God only knows what else he's covering up.

The list is far longer and stranger than Gordon could imagine.

He stares at the floor, contemplating it, and finally pulls something off his belt and passes it to Gordon, who tips it in his hand to study it. A burner phone, with a few modifications the FCC would take severe exception to.

"It only calls one number," Bruce says gruffly, trying not to see or respond to the flash of pleased surprise in Gordon's gaze. "Get some sleep," he adds, and makes for the window before this can get any more embarrassing.


	23. Chapter 23

I've stared at this one so long I can't tell if it's a mess or as good as it's going to get: the words are all starting to look like different versions of _quit farking around and post already_, which means I should probably do just that.

Here's hoping it's not a mess, I guess. :)

I've been in four countries in the last month, and I can't remember when I last got a full night's sleep. I think I'm slowly turning into a zombie.

* * *

He's tracing a tenuous link between Klein R&D and a shipping operation in the north end, which thus far has meant little more than planting various microelectronics and crouching on various rooftops with infrared lenses, when light splashes across the cloud cover to the southeast. It surprises him into motion, and he has to shift to a position behind a bank of industrial fans in case the twitch of his hands caused refraction from the lenses.

He looks up. No light. The afterimage hovering on his retinas has enough shape, though, to make him move: a bright fluorescent circle with a jagged darkness at the center.

What the hell is Gordon thinking?

There's been no attempt to reach him via the burner phone since Corlane Bridge, which he took as Gordon's way of saying he'll only use it for emergencies of the worst kind. But maybe he should have given the commissioner a pager instead?

Suspicion and worry thread through his nerves. He snaps the viewer shut and stands. It may have only been there for half a second, but there's enough noise coming from street-level to make it perfectly clear he's not the only one who noticed. "Anything on the scanner?" he says, and there's a pause, which means there hasn't been anything Alfred deemed worth his attention.

"Several 911 calls coming in city-wide about Batman sightings, sir," Alfred says dryly.

"Great," he mutters. This is going to make the night interesting. "Text Gordon: query."

"Done, sir"

Moving rooftop to rooftop when half the people on the street are looking up is not a simple proposition. He ends up using grapple lines, because the cape is just too visible in this part of town where the streetlights have been recently replaced, and too easy a target if he is spotted. Four buildings away he hears a shout and then a lot of screaming in the streets below, and flattens himself out on the roof. He peers down to find a cluster of hysterical twenty-somethings clinging to one another and pointing into the shadows of an alley. There's nothing there, but that doesn't stop half the bar-going crowd from panicking. Grimly, he makes his way toward the public service district and the MCU.

Nobody is on the rooftop.

He crouches in shadow a wary half a mile away, zooming in on the door that leads to the stairwell. Nothing. After a moment of indecision, he maneuvers closer, where he can see the darkened windows of Gordon's office. Beyond them the bull pen shows light and movement, some of it rapid. They're probably flooded with calls, trying to figure out which to take seriously.

It would be smarter to call it a night, lay low. That GCPD will have their hands full, the streets will soon be occupied by dozens of uniforms barking orders, fending off drunken belligerence, and spooking at shadows.

He could help. Then again, he is in no small part the reason for the night they're going to have, and his presence isn't likely to add any calm to the situation.

The door cracks open, and two men come out. Bulky trench and bad posture; broad, hunched shoulders and wary glances. Bullock and Stephens. He launches himself onto the long south-facing side of the MCU, where ambient streetlight is blocked by the awning from the neighboring conference center, and picks his way up. When their voices are audible over the wind and the street noise, he climbs sideways until he reaches the flue and pulls himself over the rim of the building.

"-just some nut," Bullock is saying. His mouth is full. "You watch, tomorrow we get a note from an asshole in Southside claiming responsibility and declaring he's the goddamn Batman and we spend half a goddamn month tracking him down and he'll be a dropout living in his mama's basement eating fucking doritos and watching fucking porn-"

"This is beginning to sound a little too autobiographical for my taste, Harvey," Stephens says, and Bullock spits out a mouthful of chili dog.

"Hey _fuck_ you, Ger. I'm _helping_ her, all right? She's old and she can't get around so good and she needs somebody to make sure she doesn't fall down the fucking stairs. And I don't live in her goddamn basement! I got a room on the _second fucking floor_-"

Stephens is laughing into a coffee cup, broad shoulders shaking. Batman chews down a half a smirk before stepping out of the shadows, and Bullock draws on him again. Which isn't unexpected, though it takes some effort not to knock the Glock out of his grip. He one-hands his gun like a cowboy. Or a criminal.

"Fucking a," Bullock growls. "Sunuvabitch. I _hate_ when you do that."

"Take it up with the management," Batman growls back. Stephens pushes Bullock's gun down, wary gaze flickering over the cowl as though he can see how close the Bat just came to breaking his partner's wrist. "The signal didn't come from here."

Not a question; now that he's out of the shadow he can see the surface of the searchlight is in the same shape it was the last time he was on this rooftop; broken and scarred, tipped drunkenly to one side, no longer a declaration or a beacon or any of the myriad other things Gordon used it for. A reminder of the price of failure. A warning.

Maybe that why Gordon keeps it here.

Stephens is staring at him (Bullock seems more concerned with his abandoned chili dog); his eyes flicker from the broken light to his face, serious, angry. "We're still trying to pin down the exact location, but going by the bulk of the reports we're getting, it was somewhere near Downs."

The Downs. Gutted warehouses and empty motels, a failed 1970s attempt to put a new center of business near the water.

A piece snaps into place- the girl in the chair; the empty room with the bomb; the bat drawn in charcoal above her head. Not just an invitation.

A clue. A fucking scavenger hunt.

He can see the echo of the too-sharp breath he's just taken, the creak of kevlar as his hands fist, in the alarmed expressions on the faces of the men standing with him. He already knows what he'll find when he leaves. Somewhere in the barren stretch of partially-cleared rubble where Rachel took her last breath is a search light, a thing made to resemble the one Bullock is standing next to now, but with some sick twist to it only he will fully understand. Only he and the man who created it. This game is meant to push him over the edge, and the next step toward the cliff is dragging him back to the place where she died.

He turns without a word and stands on the low edge of the roof, preparing to snap the cape into place. Some nagging worry he can't quite pin down holds him there- annoying, because the Bat doesn't hover. But: "Gordon," he rasps.

"He's got his boy home for a few days, Bats, giv'm a break," Bullock says- and then makes a strange sound and coughs on a throatful of chili dog that apparently went down the wrong pipe. Bruce hesitates, giving up another few seconds he can't really afford to lose. Stephens smacks Bullock between the shoulder blades and mutters something about his diet being the death of him, but Bruce has stopped paying attention to Stephens; he is listening to the noises Bullock makes, which are too garbled to understand but are words, words apparently important enough to try to utter even while he's choking. It had better not be just another string of profanity. Bullock hacks one more time, a painful sound, and sucks in an alarming whoop of air.

"_Bats-_" Bullock chokes, tone gone gravelly and breathless. "Bats, the fucker put a toy badge in her skirt pocket-"

Bruce goes rigid with horror.

Fury follows immediately after, a hot spike that sears up his spine and fills his head with white noise. He is so fucking _stupid_; he's had the forensic report for a day, and he is the only one holding all the pieces, the only one who knows that all three murder scenes are messages for one man, and it took Bullock to put it together. The badge Gordon gave him, which is sitting in Evidence, having yielded nothing but mystery to the GCPD's techs or his own analyses. A symbol.

It's not a Klein employee he'll find mutilated and propped up like a marionette, it's a cop, and considering how personal this has been all along, it will be a cop he knows.

"Get to his apartment!" he barks - but they are already running for the door, he is over the side of the roof a split second later, launched like a missile, blood thumping through his veins, so angry it's almost impossible to think straight.

-No. Not angry, or at least not angry enough: this messy knot of pulse and breath caught in his throat is familiar and terrible, but it's not fury. He's spent the better part of his life learning not to feel it, but he's utterly unable to shove it away right now.

It's fear, and it's going to make him miss something, it's going to get someone killed.

Sirens are wailing into the dark below him, and the rooftop under his feet is weak and sagging. He wrestles with his panicking muscles and comes to an unsteady halt, bows his head, forces himself through one full cycle of breathing exercises while the night explodes into red and blue flashes at street level. His pulse slows. His mind does too, thank christ, and when it feels like he has a grip on his reactions he brings the puzzle pieces deliberately back out, turns them over one by one, looking for the thing that doesn't fit. Because _something_ doesn't fit.

The bat was drawn over her head. On the walls. The room was rigged. Her body was injected with a paralytic similar in composition to the nerve toxin that killed the other four victims, but lacking the degenerative effects that altered skin and eye color; it would have held her motionless as her lungs failed; it would have prevented the onset of rigor. A kid's toy badge (brass-colored plastic shaped like a star, DEPUTY in black across the center, wiped clean of prints and with the serial number melted off) in her left skirt pocket, powder residue under her fingernails and hair dye clinging to her scalp -left thigh strapped to the chair under the skirt to hold the posture-

The chair.

The burnedchair. And the badge. _Her_.

It's right under his nose.

He changes direction, heading west, toward the bolt hole he maintains in the basement of Park and Thirtieth. It's harder than anything he's yet done, turning away from his headlong flight toward Gordon's door- harder than casting out a grapple line to keep Rachel's murderer from falling to his death; harder than putting the suit on the night after she'd vanished from the world. Harder than believing there was a point to it. If he's wrong about this he's not sure how he'll deal with the consequences.

He can think about that later. Right now he has to move.

He drops to street level half a block from his destination and scatters a gaggle of teenagers into an explosion of shrieks and tossed cigarettes, dimly registers the flash of a phone camera as he leaps over one fallen girl in a flap of cape and drives through a storefront window, shoulder-first and head tucked. He rolls to his feet inside, shedding clothes and broken mannequins, and exits the same way. Not exactly stealthy. There's a rising din of confusion and hysteria in his wake, but he makes it to Park and the basement without running into anybody else -and considering what his next move is, stealth was never an option anyway.

The bike sounds like a bomb blast in the closeness of the basement. It's good to be on it again, good to be moving at real speed toward a clear objective, though the doubt twisting in his guts is nauseating, almost physically painful.

"Alfred, get me a sat image of the Palisades," he snaps, weaving around panicked pedestrians and onto the highway out of town. There are already sirens behind him. As if GCPD needed any more distractions tonight. "_Alfred_," he says again, and feels that throbbing knot rise in his throat again. Because Alfred always, always answers.

"Unavailable," Alfred says, dismay coming through under the calm competence. "I believe our access to NavSat has been tampered with, sir. Checking system status now."

"Son of a _bitch_," Bruce hisses, seeing one more trap close; it wasn't just his own malware that jumped to his servers when he hacked Klein. This is chess, deadly and lightning quick, and he's been losing for longer than he knew. "Image of Gordon's apartment."

"Access is down city-wide, sir. The cameras are working, however; I show eleven units approaching the Commissioner's apartment building. Nothing amiss on either of the roof cameras, nor outside the Commissioner's door. No indication of activity within the apartment."

Which might mean nothing. Someone who can wipe out his backdoor NavSat access might be able to alter the feeds from any of the thousands of cameras he's got installed around Gotham; might be in the system right now, tracking his data trail. He breathes past the sensation that his pulse is starting to choke off his air supply, weaves through a maze of terrified late-night drivers, and grips the handles of the bike until he can feel them bruising his palms.

"Zed," he says grimly.

Alfred's line drops from his audio in a quick burst of static.

There's a flicker in the peripheral of his left eye; his primary system going offline. The route map overlaid on the LCD windshield of the bike vanishes. The lenses of the cowl come down, as the suit's OS boots up and begins to broadcast. Digital billboards on the sides of the highway turn to error messages and blinking cursors as he blows by them. The lights in some of the more modern buildings he passes, buildings which have entirely computerized environmental systems, flicker and go out.

He hasn't fully tested this system; he is reasonably sure his signal won't override Gotham's entire traffic grid, but not sure enough to chance the slightly faster route through Industrial Park. Instead he flattens the accelerator and arcs over to the construction lane, where the only things in his way are steamrollers and patches of stripped roadway. The exit ramp is brightly-lit and tiered. He launches over the guardrail and braces for the bone-rattling impact of a thirty foot, one-hundred-and-ten mph landing. "Two three eight dark," he mutters, and as the bike's tires slam into pavement and his knees shoot fire all the way to the base of his spine, all the lights on this stretch of highway go out at once.

Night vision and integrated GPS point the way to the Palisades, not that he needs help getting there.

"GCPD is reporting Gordon and his son have been located and are being taken into custody," Lucius drawls into his ear, a faint rough edge suggesting he was asleep when Zed came online, turning the attic of his West End home into a very impromptu center of operations. "I take it our new friend has been busy tonight."

The relief is, for a second, blinding, loosening muscles across the tops of his shoulders and in his jaw, dragging too much air into his lungs. Gordon and his boy are safe. He got this much right. Thank god.

"I need aerial of Wayne Manor," Bruce says, instead of _are they all right_, _where were they_, and _Lucius_ _what the fuck is happening to my systems_. He's fairly proud of himself for not yelling. Now that Gordon is located (at least for the moment, and Alfred had better be making sure of the security at MCU) he can focus. "What can you do for me?"

"Oh, I think I might have something lying around here that could do the trick," Lucius says- bless him, that confident twang is more welcome than a pile of rocket launchers and a dedicated satellite of his very own. Lucius can perform miracles when he talks like this. Typically he already has and, like Scotty in the engine room, is just drawing out the moment so it looks like work instead of magic.

Image flicks to life in the top right corner of his eye. It's grainy and blurred in all the wrong places, but it's real-time. "Regional comsat network could use a security upgrade," Lucius remarks, sounding pleased with himself.

"I'm sure we can help them out with that," Bruce says, and guns it across the looping exit to the Gardens, crunching brush and rocks under the bike's big wheels, startling a pair of deer into leaping flight. The night air smells of pine needles and cold ground and dead grass; there are stars pricking the darkness of the sky. Some cross of impulse and logic leads him to avoid the waterfall entrance. Instead he takes a stone footbridge up the wooded southern side of the estate, turns into the long flat stretch before the house itself, which is a ragged collection of unfinished angles jutting into the skyline like old teeth -and slides into a desperate sideways skid when a wire stretched across two piles of construction material catches starlight just before he drives facefirst into it.

The bike overbalances and flattens out. His cape shreds as the right side of his body drags on gravel. The kevlar can take it, and the plates keep his skin from shredding along with the cape, but the suit heats rapidly in the friction, burning his shoulder and hip. He drops the handles, kicks the seat release and rolls, residual momentum making the world a wild wide blur around him, his body curled and throbbing. The bike hits a stack of stone and launches skyward, engine roaring. "Beta off," Bruce gasps, and the noise cuts out mid-flight as the engine shuts down. The bike lands without exploding, and his battered body comes to an abrupt halt as he meets the wheel of a cement mix truck. The breath-stealing sensation of his ribs cracking drags a moan out of his throat, makes his spine arch.

A gunshot cracks out into the dark and his audio hums feedback. Several others reply from a different location. Above his head bullets strike the truck. A ricochet numbs his thigh.

Half-blinded by pain, he hauls himself up by the door handle of the truck and dives inside as more bullets whine into the night. "I need close-up," he mutters, and the image flickering in his right periphery grows, showing him the construction field, the stretch of hill that the manor sits on, his mangled bike smoking next to the stack of marble blocks that finally halted its trajectory.

The gunmen planted behind the incomplete bulk of Wayne Manor.

They look like Rugetti's. They have high-powered rifles and possibly hand grenades, he can't get a close enough look to be sure. Best to assume so. On the northern rise is a gleam that might be a scope. It might also be a tossed beer bottle, or a leftover set of safety goggles.

Chess again. They were waiting for him.

His main advantage is that judging by their positions and the tire tracks and footprints, he showed up much earlier than they expected. No doubt there's a clue waiting to be found in Downs where that signal originated, something meant to point him to this place, which means GCPD will be heading here soon, though probably not soon enough.

He can hear the soft scuff of footsteps in dirt.

He cranks the audio pickup and activates infrared. Heat signatures blossom around him. Nine people, spread out primarily to the east, maneuvering in as he watches. The tenth is smaller and wounded and almost on top of him, moving in a careful crouch, showing a higher temperature than the others and a faster pulse. The gun barrel is a flare of yellow and white on his scan- recently fired. Someone else is approaching from the other side. He makes a decision, flings a trank dart through the driver's-side window, then kicks the passenger door wide to snatch Montoya by the collar of her shirt and haul her inside before she can do much more than squawk. His cracked ribs grind.

"Son of a bitch, son of a bitch," Montoya hisses, thrashing free of his grip. Bruce taps two fingers over her chin in a silent command to shut the hell up. She's bleeding from her side and her scalp, and even in infrared it's possible to see the damage to her face. It looks painful, but not critical. She slides sideways and peers over the door, gun held next to her face.

"I got three on my two coming in fast and those rifles can punch through the hood of this thing no problem, though maybe not the cabin, I dunno. I'd rather not find out. I hope to almighty christ you have a better plan than hiding in this truck."

"Nope," he says agreeably, and, as she throws him as wide-eyed a look as he has ever gotten from her, he slaps the ignition and the current in his glove kicks the truck engine to life with a roar.

He guns it forward in second gear, scattering gunmen and rolling over a pile of two-by-fours. "Keep your head down," he yells. Montoya is already sliding to the floor, and doesn't look like she has any inclination to make a target of herself. Bullets destroy the windshield, flinging shatter-glass all over them; one clips the side of the cowl, whipping his head sideways. Bruce aims one arm out the window and deploys the smart missile on the underside of his forearm, waits for the explosion to light up the field, and then takes his own advice.

Steering based on nothing but grainy satellite images that are two seconds behind events is interesting.

"The Commissioner and his son are at the MCU, sir," Alfred says in one ear.

"Zed protocol 908," Bruce barks into the cowl's mike; maybe louder than he needs to, it's hard to tell with guns going off on all sides- but Montoya looks at him like he's crazy, so it was probably too loud. Data begins to stream past his left eye. The MCU is going into lockdown now, the security system they didn't know they had going to high alert. Nobody's going to be able to enter or leave that building without blowing a hole through a wall. At the same time Klein's security systems are going offline, leaving their network wide open. Lucius will know what to do with that.

The truck hits the steep eastern slope that will end in a sharp drop and a river, and he downshifts and presses the accelerator to the floor. Montoya is peeking over the door, taking potshots at whatever it is she's seeing out there; he reaches over and shoves her back to the floor, then pitches himself onto it as well, covering her body with his own, trying to brace his hands and feet against the sides, to keep the empty windshield in his line of sight. Montoya curses like a sailor, but she's smart enough not to struggle.

Then they go over, and gravity vanishes for a startling span of seconds.

It comes back hard as the truck's nose bounces off ledge and jolts them both up into the bucket seat. The glove compartment snaps open and showers the cabin in paper and pens and half-empty packs of cigarettes. His ribs howl; he can feel his shoulder trying to separate under the strain. Bruce slaps down a detonator; calculates, clinging to the holy-shit handle above the door (never has it had such an appropriate use), and shoots a line skyward through the windshield at the tree he knows is there -it _has_ to be there, it's been there all his life, and they're flipping end to end but he can still _feel_ up. Then he grabs Montoya around the waist and curls his head over hers as they go flying out of the hole where the windshield was.

She makes a breathless noise that might be horror or pain, he can't be sure. The truck's tail clips his left foot as they rise beyond it, and he can tell from the way his whole lower leg goes numb that he's broken something. He doesn't have the line clipped to his belt; he didn't have time. He clutches the grip of the grapple gun harder as their weight bites into the line, wrenching his right side, and then the gun begins to draw them slowly up, fighting physics.

"Don't move," he hisses, too breathless with pain and effort to manage a growl.

"No _shit_," Montoya hisses back. She has the presence of mind to wrap both her arms around his neck, freeing up his other hand. Thank christ for smart cops. "Does this thing have a weight limit? I don't want to be dangling here like a fucking cat toy when they come looking."

Bruce huffs; it sounds uncomfortably like a wheeze. That's the least of their problems. The truck, which is currently clearing a vast, cartwheeling path through the woods below them as it bleeds off momentum, is going to go up in flames in 3.2 minutes, and if they're still hanging here when that happens they're going to be charbroiled.

"Hold on," he grunts, dragging the gun's catch to the attachment on his belt, and thumbs the _escape_ setting. They go flying upward in a burst of speed. Montoya makes a faint hooting sound that is probably a muffled yelp, and clings like a cat to a tree branch. Only she's at least one-fifty, and he's one sore tree.

The truck explodes a little late, thankfully.

"You have the most _fucked-up_ gear," Montoya pants, her voice uneven and dazed, and lets go of him to stagger a few steps away. Her knees buckle suddenly; Bruce catches her elbow and hauls her upright. He can barely stand himself. His left foot is swollen so badly he can feel it pressing against the restriction of the boot, his right arm is weak and aching, and every breath feels like swallowing knives.

They have to be out of here now; Hush will have his people search the area, he has no doubt. His bike is out of commission, the nearest vehicle with an autopilot sophisticated enough to come get them is too far away to be useful, and he can't exactly see them waving down a late-night driver for a ride. The GCPD haven't arrived yet, and since he locked quite a few of them in the MCU with Gordon, they probably won't regroup quickly or well.

Two options left, and one of them requires more physical stamina than either of them has to draw on right now.

"I hope to christ this isn't an average night for you," Montoya says, and shoves off a second time. She leans to brace herself on her thighs, breathing in ragged but deep gasps.

"Not exactly," Bruce rasps, and bends over to lock the bracers built into his boots in place around his left ankle. Montoya is staring at him when he straightens. There isn't much but waning moonlight to tell him how bad off she is, but he thinks the darkness running over her left cheekbone and down her neck is fresh blood. "How badly hurt are you, detective?"

She snorts, touches the side of her head gingerly. "I'm in no better shape than you are, _detective_. Don't we need to maybe get the fuck out of here?"

She sounds a lot more like Bullock when she's pissed off.

She's probably going to be truly furious in a few minutes.

"Base one," Bruce says, not allowing himself to feel anything but the urgency of the moment, and rattles off a string of code in three different languages while Montoya eyes him like he's just burst into song. There's a dart with a fifteen-minute sedative on his belt. It's a serious risk: Montoya probably has a concussion, she's still bleeding from several cuts and at least one gunshot wound, there could be internal damage. She clearly put up a hell of fight when they took her, and another, more successful one after they brought her here.

The feed in his left peripheral shifts, changes color, and rolls past at high speed. The cave is waking up under their feet.

He tips his head, listening to the rustle of city thugs trying to be stealthy in the woods, and beckons Montoya down the hill into deeper cover. There's an entrance at the bottom of this hill, not an easy one, but they're running out of options. He counts eleven separate treads coming at them from three directions, and while he thinks he could probably still take them in a physical fight, their high-powered rifles are loaded with armor-piercing rounds, which if they hit something other than titanium plate will do some serious damage. And he doesn't yet know how badly Montoya is hurt.

Also, there are the hand grenades to think of.

He's limping now, the uneven terrain wreaking havoc on the broken bones in his foot. Montoya has one hand pressed to her side and her gun held limply in the other hand. She's out of bullets. A fine pair they make. Bruce takes her arm -gently, since she's carrying it like it might be broken- and tugs her toward the rock face exposed on the other side of the hill. His night vision picks up the familiar configuration of bushes and trees, and he has shoved past them and is ducking under the lip of the cave entrance when the first grenade arcs overhead. It's well downslope from them, little more than a poorly-executed flushing tactic, but the shockwave knocks them both back against the rock.

Bruce shoves Montoya inside and himself after her as a second grenade goes flying in the opposite direction. There's a folding steel screen under a pile of rocks on the inside; he hauls it into place over the entrance and bolts it down, trying not to react to the stabbing pain in his side. The real door is well hidden a hundred and fifty feet farther in, and it opens to a retina scan and a code.

He taps Montoya's shoulder to get her moving. The tunnel is miserably cramped. And having someone in here with him is… surreal.

"Where are we going, exactly?" Montoya breathes. "Does this lead somewhere? Because I'd rather not die trapped in a cave, if it's all the fucking same to you."

In response, Bruce flicks on a handlight to show her the dark tunnel stretching ahead of them.

She stills. Then she stops altogether. She leans against the wall.

He can almost _feel_ putting the pieces together. Knowing it was inevitable doesn't make it any easier to wait through. He fights the urge to look away. Her gaze is little more than a gleam in the dark, but it feels like a pair of coals on exposed skin.

"We need to keep moving," he says finally, and strides past her.

"Something you maybe want to tell me _now_, Mr. Wayne?" Montoya says softly.

Bruce turns to look back at her. His pulse is thudding in his throat. His hands are cold. It's dismay; it's fear; it's even a weird species of relief- it's probably blood loss and impending shock. He takes a breath, thinks of the nerve juncture above the collar bone that causes loss of consciousness, the sedative in the darts under his left wrist, the other drugs hidden away deep in the cave, things that can wipe out hours or days of human memory.

And he thinks of her concussion. Her gunshot wound. Her merciless pursuit of the truth. Her ruthless and black and infinitely strange sense of humor. The way she prods the people around her into being better versions of themselves; the way she never settles for less in herself.

The way she looks after Gordon, like an old friend or a younger sister.

He is tired in a way sleep isn't going to be able to touch. He turns around and walks onward into the dark, unable to push his pulse back down, not sure he could speak even if he had something to say; there seems to be no room on his tongue right now for anything but the odd taste of this moment. _Risk_ isn't the word for this. He's not sure he knows a word for this.

After a long moment, her uneven footsteps follow behind him.


End file.
